The Dog Cancer Survival Guide (5 page)
Read The Dog Cancer Survival Guide Online
Authors: Susan Ettinger Demian Dressler
Antioxidants (Potent Commercial formulations such as MaxGL, Poly MVA)
Introduction
G
lenda watched as I examined Max,
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her nine-year-old Golden Retriever.
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The surgical stitches from his bone biopsy looked fine: no swelling, no irritation, and a nice, clean mark. He would barely have a scar. Unfortunately, a scar was the least of his problems. I scratched his rump, and his big flag of a tail wagged in response. I turned to Glenda. “How has he been doing since his bone biopsy?”
“You were right about using cream cheese to hide his pills – he took them with no complaints... but he’s still limping.” She paused. “Did you get the report?”
“Yes, the biopsy report came in this morning,” I said, rocking my head back and forth to loosen my neck. “The area of bone I showed you on the X-ray does not look good. It’s a cancer named osteosarcoma.”
Glenda looked like she’d been slapped.
Please don’t cry,
I thought.
“What?”
“Osteosarcoma. Max has bone cancer.”
“So my dog is going to die of cancer?”
“Well, we have different options. It’s a little early to say how things will turn out,” I dodged. I wasn’t sure she was really ready to hear the survival statistics or contemplate the complex choices ahead of her.
“I thought you said this was an
infection
. You said it looked like an infection on the X-ray. I’m having a hard time believing what you’re telling me.”
“Infection was one of the possibilities we discussed. The other main possibility was cancer. Sometimes the two can look similar on an X-ray. We did the biopsy so we could be sure of the diagnosis. I’m really sorry. I wish the biopsy had come back negative.”
Glenda placed one hand on her forehead, fingers shading her eyes. Her other hand dropped to Max’s head as he leaned against her thigh. I waited, ready to offer tissues. After a moment, Glenda wiped her eyes and cleared her throat.
“What are the options?”
Here we go, I thought, it’s not going to get any easier to tell her this, so just start talking.
“The treatment options are surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.”
It was hard to look directly into Glenda’s eyes, so I shuffled the papers in Max’s file as I continued.
“Surgery, in the case of bone cancer, means amputation. Yes, dogs can walk on three legs, but no, it likely will not cure the cancer in the end.
This cancer has usually spread through the body by the time it is diagnosed. Without treatment, median survival is about two months, and owners usually choose to euthanize the dog because of the decline in life quality.
Chemotherapy added to the surgery extends median survival time to about ten months to a year, give or take.
Radiation can take away the pain for a few months, usually four or five.”
I was finished listing treatments, so I stopped talking.
“Is that all? That’s it?” Glenda whispered.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Those are the options we have.”
“But, I, I mean...” Glenda stammered, “How, how did Max even get this?”
I resumed my standard cancer lecture.
“No one really knows exactly how cancer starts. It’s a multi-factorial disease, which means many things can increase the odds of its happening.”
“Is it his food?”
“Well, not really.”
“I have heard vaccines can do it. What about toxins or something? Should he be wearing sunscreen?”
There was no one way to answer Glenda’s questions, but, I didn’t know how to explain that to her.
“We don’t know the actual cause of cancer. The person who figures that out will get the Nobel Prize.” I trailed off. Helping Glenda to understand and deal with Max’s cancer diagnosis could take hours, and the next client was waiting.
We both knew I was avoiding her questions.
Glenda sighed and asked for some time to digest the bad news. I agreed, took out Max’s sutures, dispensed more pain medication, and showed them out.
The visit had taken over half an hour.
I’m late,
I thought as I hurried Glenda’s paperwork to the receptionist.
I’ve got to get back in the game and treat my next patient.
The rest of the day was busy. I had few breaks, and those were filled with paperwork, ordering prescriptions and running my hospital. I felt distracted. Max’s big brown eyes kept showing up in my thoughts. I saw him wagging his tail at me and comforting Glenda.
Dogs can be so generous. Too bad we’re not more like them.
I didn’t know it yet, but Max’s generosity was about to inspire a change in my career.
It’s not unusual to feel exhausted at the end of a day filled with broken bones, infections, heart disease, diabetes and cancer, but that evening found me particularly drained; Max’s predicament was still weighing on my mind.
I had recently noticed that more and more cancer cases were showing up in my practice. I repeated the same lines over and over: “Your dog has cancer ... radiation, surgery, chemotherapy ... crummy statistics ... no other options.” Then, short on time, as most vets are, I hurried the poor dog lovers out the door, leaving them to wipe their eyes and wonder what to do.
I’m a healer,
I thought, as I walked to my car.
Why couldn’t I help more? How could I leave Glenda crying and Max still sick? I want to be able to do more. I’m tired of going home at night, feeling powerless and demoralized.
Something is very wrong.
If I hadn’t been so physically, emotionally, and mentally tired, I may have shrugged off these thoughts. But, something was different that night. Max had gotten to me somehow. So, instead, I contemplated these thoughts, especially the last one.
Something is very wrong.
Could that really be true? And if it were true, was there something I could do about it? Could I make what was wrong right?
I graduated from Cornell University, the top veterinary school in the country
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. I had been practicing fifty to sixty hours per week since 1997. I had loads of information cemented into my brain, and incredible experience. And yet, I could not cure Max’s cancer. I couldn’t cure cancer in most of my patients.