Lymphoma

What a crazy, sad week this was. Monday night, I happened to notice that Marcie was salivating more than usual, and sort of quivering her mouth... I don't know how else to describe it. So I looked inside her mouth, and was pretty disturbed by what I saw. Her tongue was swollen and ulcerated. So Tuesday morning, I called the vet as soon as they opened to get her an appointment, ASAP. They were able to see her at 9, so I left work to take her in. Her front right leg was swollen at this point too. The vet examined her, and said that the symptons were consistent with a snake bite. I always stay outside with my dogs, and didn't recall her being bitten by anything, but conceded that it was possible. So they were to keep her for the day to give IV fluids and Benadryl. I went back to work, expecting to pick her up at 5:30, good as new. Well they called me at work with terrible news. It wasn't a snake bite-- it was cancer. So they ran some tests, and we had to wait till Friday for the results. All we could do was control her pain with medicine. We also had to spoon-feed canned food to her, because her tongue was so swollen it was near impossible for her to eat on her own. On Friday we got the results, and just as I had begun to suspect, the cancer is an aggressive form of lymphoma. If we decided on no treatment, she'd have only 4-6 weeks to live. As you can imagine we were very upset and confused as to what to do. We knew that chemotherapy was expensive, but we love this dog and couldn't bear to see her suffer. We got her in for an oncology appointment at the NC State vet school Friday afternoon... and after much deliberation we finally decided to go ahead with chemo. The results so far have been amazing. By Saturday morning, her masses had dramatically decreased in size. Today, she's almost herself again and is nearly at the same energy level she was before she got sick. We know that she has a long road, and that even once it's in remission, the cancer will rear its ugly head again within a year or so... but at least for now we are all happy. But Thursday afternoon I received an e-mail from my old friend Phil's wife. He passed away that morning due to complications from chemotherapy. He had been battling Hodgkins lymphoma for a little over 2 years. I don't know why cancer has to take the people (and pets) we love. They don't even know for sure what causes it. But when it strikes, it's ugly. There isn't a cure, all they can do is treat it and send it into remission. I know that Phil's struggle was not easy... he blogged about his battle with cancer, and it was obvious that chemotherapy for people is not fun. Luckily for Marcie, it's not that bad for dogs. I'm sad for Phil, and his wife who stood by him and loved him and quite possibly is the reason he was able to fight for as long as he did. But maybe he's happier now, wherever he is, not having to hurt and suffer anymore.