So some of you are aware via chats on DC++, but just thought I'd put this out there for anyone else who has dogs and may be curious.
About 3 weeks ago, my husband and I took our black lab Loon to the vet to get some lumps removed. She'd had these lumps for a couple of years, and our previous vet just told us to keep an eye on them and let him know if they got bigger or changed in any way. So a month or so ago, we started seeing a new vet. He checked them out as well, and told us it wouldn't hurt to have them removed and sent to the lab for pathology. In total, we had four lumps removed-- one on her forehead, one on her right flank, one on the inside of her left leg, and one on her rear left leg under her tail. 3 of the lumps came back as non-serious. The one on her left rear came back as a mast cell tumor, which is cancerous.
The vet didn't feel qualified to give us specific treatment methods although he did talk about further excision, radiation therapy or leaving it alone. He strongly suggested we see a veterinary oncologist, which we did today. The oncologist sounded very positive when looking at the pathology results but felt like she needed to speak with the lab tech to get further details. She also gave us options to consider. The first was surgery, which would remove a bigger chunk of tissue from her backside. While it could be potentially disfiguring, she felt like her tail would cover it up for the most part, and she had had no experience with any dogs losing mobility or having problems with musculature. It would be a one-day outpatient sort of thing, with a 2 week recovery time. The second option was radiation therapy, which would require her to get treatments for 5 days a week for 3 weeks. She said that radiation treatments were very successful in keeping tumors from recurring, but my dog would have to be under anesthesia DAILY to do this. Not a selling point for me, as my dog is 9 years old. The last treatment was no treatment... kind of a "wait and see" attitude. She felt like most mast cell tumors do return without further treatment, so we didn't even consider this an option.
Anyhow, today, she had complete bloodwork done on her, as well as needle aspirates on 3 other small lumps we found. I'm not so concerned about those. We'll wait for the results of this work (hopefully tonight or tomorrow). The oncologist felt like the bloodwork will give her more insight into what's going on and she'd be able to tell if the tumor was metastisizing anywhere else in the body. So anyhow, once we get that back, we're going to go ahead with surgery. The oncologist strongly recommended this route as well, and I feel very comfortable with our decision. It's certainly not going to be cheap, but at the same time, we're willing to do whatever it takes, and she's completely healthy and high-spirited otherwise.
Part of me is still worried with all the waiting we have to do, but overall, I'm feeling very positive about our experience with the oncologist so far.
For those of you who want to learn further about mast cell tumors, here's a GREAT website. For reference, my dog was diagnosed with a Grade II mast cell tumor.
http://www.kateconnick.com/library/mastcelltumor.html
Loon is now scheduled next Wednesday with a pre-surgery consult, and after that, we will set a date for her surgery. She will have 4 different locations of tissue removed. At this point, we've avoided the need for chemotherapy or radiation treatments, which is a godsend.
