Any veterinarians on this site?

FastEddieB

FastEddieB

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Lenoir City, TN/Mineral Bluff, GA
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Fast Eddie B
Odd place to post, I know, but...

Our dog, Jake, is about 10 years old and has developed an issue.

Our vet has seen him, but we're undecided on a course of action.

If anyone here would be willing to discuss it with us, and help us with our decision, please email me with a number and good time to call. We know diagnosing from a distance is difficult, but this is more general advice we're looking for.

FastEddieB@mac.com

Thanks.
 
Thanks to the two members who contacted me.

Jake, our 10 year old Chow/Jindo mix suddenly had a huge growth on his tongue, and we were agonizing over how aggressively to treat it.

Our local vet is a saint, but one suggestion was to find a School of Veterinary Medicine that might be able to look at it and offer an opinion.

Anyway, our appointment at the University of TN in Knoxville was yesterday, and some samples were taken then to biopsy.

Surgery was scheduled for today, and we dropped him off this morning. They said the surgery went well, though some of the tongue had to be removed. It was cancerous (melanoma), but had not spread that they could tell - the biopsy of his swollen lymph node was benign. Still, the average survival time is about 8 months, but we'll take every minute.

They originally wanted to keep him overnight, so I came home while Karen stayed with family. They called her about an hour ago and said he was doing so well they thought he'd recover better in familiar surroundings, so she's picking him up about 5P to bring him home (about 2 hrs south).

Anyway, right before dropping Jake off this morning:

14228104477_d6903e4556_z.jpg


Don't want to gross anyone out, but if you look closely you can see what we were dealing with. He should be a lot more comfortable with that gone.
 
Wow, I'm glad they have figured out a treatment for Jake. Please keep letting us know about his recovery.
 
Good to hear you have found a way to lick that tongue cancer...
 
Glad its working out, but don't let anyone do any chemo. Surgery is bad enough. Jake doesn't understand any of it.
 
steingar said:
Glad its working out, but don't let anyone do any chemo. Surgery is bad enough. Jake doesn't understand any of it.
Click to expand...

It was discussed that if the tumor comes back, which is not unlikely, then radiation might be indicated.

In any case, the surgery was a tough choice - wish we could have asked Jake about it.

I have a feeling he would have reluctantly agreed that we had to do something.

In any case, we were not ready to give up on him - though we suspect his days with us are numbered regardless of what we do.

BTW, he's not an only child. I may have posted this elsewhere, but clockwise from Jake: Willie, Halo and Chowder.

8496850443_9e67967ea4_z.jpg
 
Eddie, all the best to you and Jake. It's an emotional thing, even for the vets. My daughter is a 4th year vet student, and has seen vets take things personally. It's a profession of compassion.
 
Veterinary schools are a good place for advanced techniques (and just getting a second opinion). I'm glad you had one in range. When I was growing up it was never an issue, Dad taught at one (UC Davis and then WSU). Needless to say, our animals were poked and prodded throughout their lives.

Nddons - vets really take things personally when it's their pet that's involved. Dad sure did.
 
Eddie, did they decide Jake would not be a suitable candidate for the new melanoma vaccine (it's actually a treatment)?

http://www.petcancervaccine.com/Pages/default.aspx

PS: not all chemo treatments are the hell that humans report so I would not blanket rule out all chemo for animals. I have saved animals ie effected a cure for certain cancers for 10+ years with chemo with no undesirable effects, at a decent cost.
Always have a discussion with your veterinarian before ruling out any treatment; please don't let well-meaning folks decide for you.
 
One of our girls (dogs) just had surgery for an intestinal growth. We went to U of WI vet school. Awesome place.

She is doing great, but we are going back for blood work up to try a chemo pill called paladin (sp?). If she tolerates it, we will stay on it. If not, we will take our chances. Her cancer type is not typically metastic (sp?), but they said her tumor showed signs of fast cell growth. She is 40lbs and 14. Another year would be great.


Glad your dog came through surgery well.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Eddie, did they decide Jake would not be a suitable candidate for the new melanoma vaccine (it's actually a treatment)?

http://www.petcancervaccine.com/Pages/default.aspx

PS: not all chemo treatments are the hell that humans report so I would not blanket rule out all chemo for animals. I have saved animals ie effected a cure for certain cancers for 10+ years with chemo with no undesirable effects, at a decent cost.
Always have a discussion with your veterinarian before ruling out any treatment; please don't let well-meaning folks decide for you.
Click to expand...

Hi Ed,
I'm glad you followed up with the Biopsy. I relayed your update to my wife and was going to post her comments, but "Let's Go Flying" said it first. See, you can get good advice on the internet. Please take his comments to heart.

Follow up with the vet school and ask about the vaccine. And please do not rule out chemo because of an internet comment. We have treated hundreds of cats with chemo and have never seen the horrible side effects that people see. They may be nauseous for a day or so, but that goes away soon and when used correctly can have very positive effects.

I hope you and Jake have many more years together.
 
I did follow up with the vet about the vaccine. She had heard of it but would check with oncology about its applicability in this case.

We're still waiting for the definitive biopsy report, but they're virtually sure it was cancerous. Keeping all options on the table, including chemo and radiation.

In any case, the tumor, while huge, was on a bit of a "stalk". They were prepared to take up to half of his tongue, but ended up only taking about 25%.

And he's in much better shape than we feared - almost as if nothing happened. Drinking much more easily without that "thing" in his mouth, and eating soft food just fine. Not 100%, but much better than we had anticipated!

We've been told to have him take it easy, so his walks are much shorter for now.

But he was rarin' to go when we hooked up the other guys yesterday!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXA5qjabHD4
 
Thanks for the concern.

Jake recovered almost immediately.

I would say he was back to his old playful self, but he's never been all that playful. But this morning he was uncharacteristically playing tug-of-war with Wille over a toy! Got it on video and will post a link later - it's pretty cute.

We had a consult with the Oncology Dept. last week. The tumor was an aggressive type of melanoma. They got it all with good margins, and his lungs looked clear in an x-ray, but the most common prognosis is 6-12 months of life left.

We were ready to go ahead with the cancer vaccine, about 8 treatments and about $2,000. But the vet showed us the most recent data, which showed essentially no difference in life span with and without the treatment.

The other option is a more conventional chemotherapy, also long term and expensive, but again with no guarantees, and with more side effects possible.

Right now we're in a wait-and-see mode and still just spoiling the heck out of our "golden boy"!

Again, thanks for asking!
 
Thought you guys might appreciate an update.

Again, we decided against any treatment for now, and about 2 1/2 months post-surgery Jake is pretty much his old self.

We've been spoiling the heck out of him, so I took him yesterday when I went to Knoxville to pick up Karen, and found the time to let him play at a nice PetSafe dog park at Concord Park.

He was feeling more that a little "frisky", trying to hump virtually every ***** in sight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SybVWOUuexA

Thanks again for all the feedback and support!
 
Hey, Eddie, I've been meaning to ping you to see how things are going. Didn't get around to it. Thanks for the update and the good news! :thumbsup:
 
Jake's da man!
Thanks for the update. He was lucky that he had someone that cared enough about him to get him the treatment he needed. The fact that you did your research and took a gamble on him makes you a really good person in my book. I just hope my advice helped in some small way.

FastEddieB said:
Thought you guys might appreciate an update.

Again, we decided against any treatment for now, and about 2 1/2 months post-surgery Jake is pretty much his old self.

We've been spoiling the heck out of him, so I took him yesterday when I went to Knoxville to pick up Karen, and found the time to let him play at a nice PetSafe dog park at Concord Park.

He was feeling more that a little "frisky", trying to hump virtually every ***** in sight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SybVWOUuexA

Thanks again for all the feedback and support!
Click to expand...
 
FastEddieB said:
It was discussed that if the tumor comes back, which is not unlikely, then radiation might be indicated.

In any case, the surgery was a tough choice - wish we could have asked Jake about it.

I have a feeling he would have reluctantly agreed that we had to do something.

In any case, we were not ready to give up on him - though we suspect his days with us are numbered regardless of what we do.

BTW, he's not an only child. I may have posted this elsewhere, but clockwise from Jake: Willie, Halo and Chowder.

8496850443_9e67967ea4_z.jpg
Click to expand...
What kind of dog is the one on the left? I have one that looks similar.
 
steingar said:
but don't let anyone do any chemo. .
Click to expand...

+1 on that... we had a 16 year old cat with excellent blood work, who had a large tumor and piece of her left lung removed and for the weeks after the operation, she was like a kitten again.

We were recommended chemo as a long term treatment and started her first treatment. For a week everything seemed fine, then she crashed and back to the vet ER only to discover the chemo was killing her kidneys very fast (CRF) and she started to have seizures etc... not very pretty.

I believe to this day, even without the chemo, she would have lived a lot longer, yes there was a chance that the cancer could return...but at least we would have had more time with her.

Honestly, I would never ever recommend chemo to any pet owner... we were drawn in by what the vet was telling us about long term survival and believed it.
 
Scrabo said:
+1 on that... we had a 16 year old cat with excellent blood work, who had a large tumor and piece of her left lung removed and for the weeks after the operation, she was like a kitten again.

We were recommended chemo as a long term treatment and started her first treatment. For a week everything seemed fine, then she crashed and back to the vet ER only to discover the chemo was killing her kidneys very fast (CRF) and she started to have seizures etc... not very pretty.

I believe to this day, even without the chemo, she would have lived a lot longer, yes there was a chance that the cancer could return...but at least we would have had more time with her.

Honestly, I would never ever recommend chemo to any pet owner... we were drawn in by what the vet was telling us about long term survival and believed it.
Click to expand...
You can't win them all, and even the best cures sometimes kill, I would be looking very closely at the statistics before making a decision. Thankfully my now 3.5 year old Lab has yet to ever have any sort of health issue.
 
I'm sorry for your experience, but one example does not warrant such a general condemnation of an important medical procedure. We have done hundreds of chemo treatments on cats without the results you saw. Of course though, we require regular and periodic testing and examinations to make sure nothing else is developing to undermine the benefits of the chemo. CRF is "chronic" renal failure, meaning it was long term and should probably have been known about in advance. If the renal failure were brought on by the Chemo it was probably acute renal failure and should have been detected prior to crashing through the aforementioned testing.

Chemo may not be right in every case, but that decision needs to be made by a qualified doctor taking into consideration all aspects of the specific patient. Why deny hundreds or thousands of pets a chance of remission and longer life due to your bad experience.

Scrabo said:
+1 on that... we had a 16 year old cat with excellent blood work, who had a large tumor and piece of her left lung removed and for the weeks after the operation, she was like a kitten again.

We were recommended chemo as a long term treatment and started her first treatment. For a week everything seemed fine, then she crashed and back to the vet ER only to discover the chemo was killing her kidneys very fast (CRF) and she started to have seizures etc... not very pretty.

I believe to this day, even without the chemo, she would have lived a lot longer, yes there was a chance that the cancer could return...but at least we would have had more time with her.

Honestly, I would never ever recommend chemo to any pet owner... we were drawn in by what the vet was telling us about long term survival and believed it.
Click to expand...
 
I stand by what I said. Whether or not the antineoplastic agent is efficacious against the tumor in question, all of them have side effects, it is relatively unavoidable. When a person suffers a side effect they know it is a small evil to allow the greater good. An animal can only suffer without understanding.
 
To update everyone...

Jake has made it to the nine months or so the vet said would be average considering the type of melanoma we were dealing with, and he seems fine.

Still walking with the pack every day and seems not to be suffering at all.

Regardless, we're grateful for this nine months and have our fingers crossed for many more.

Thanks again for all the support!

And Jake thanks you too!

15687883972_5a793446b5_z.jpg
 
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steingar said:
I stand by what I said. Whether or not the antineoplastic agent is efficacious against the tumor in question, all of them have side effects, it is relatively unavoidable. When a person suffers a side effect they know it is a small evil to allow the greater good. An animal can only suffer without understanding.
Click to expand...

After having have lived on a ranch, I question whether animals have the same capacity to suffer as we do. It is not really apparent. Yes by all means there is a level of pain and suffering they experience, but I don't think it is on the level of the human experience. I think that is one of the costs of being able to realize anything you imagine as a species. Suffering is what causes one to obey the social order, and for humans, obeying the social order is vital to our progress and continued existence. This is not something evolution requires from the other species. They just need to develop pain and suffering to protect themselves as individuals and learn to teach their offspring to avoid it. I don't think creatures that don't raise their offspring suffer at all, because it serves no purpose.

I think the only thing animals suffer same as humans is social isolation and death of offspring
 
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FastEddieB said:
To update everyone...

Jake has made it to the nine months or so the vet said would be average considering the type of melanoma we were dealing with, and he seems fine.

Still walking with the pack every day and seems not to be suffering at all.

Regardless, we're grateful for this nine months and have our fingers crossed for many more.

Thanks again for all the support!

And Jake thanks you too!

15687883972_5a793446b5_z.jpg
Click to expand...

Awesome, Eddie. Thanks for the update.
 
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