Spumoni the Great

On May 3rd I was petting Spumoni (age 9) and felt a golf ball sized lump on the side of his neck.  I didn't think too much of it at first, as he has had other cysts throughout the years.  But the more I felt it the more it didn't feel like his other ones, and it seemed to have come out of nowhere.  We were worried, but he had just had a full physical and blood workup a couple months before and he was in perfect health, so it didn't seem possible it could be anything serious.  But unfortunately Matt took him to the vet the next day to get it checked out, and it had already grown larger.  The vet did a needle biopsy and he could tell right away that it was what we had feared, cancer.  He thought based on the location that it was lymphoma.  We did another larger biopsy the next day and a week later found out that the cancer was actually squamous cell carcinoma.  On May 12th, my birthday, we met with the oncologist to discuss treatment options.  He told us that this type of cancer is rare and aggressive.  Dogs can pass away within 4-6 weeks of the cancer appearing.  He said it was likely that the cancer had already spread and what we were feeling was already a secondary location on the lymph node.  It was devastating news.  Over the course of the next couple days we did a series of tests to determine if the cancer had originated or spread anywhere else, and each time found out that it had not!  So once we confirmed that the cancer was Stage 1, we decided to move forward with surgery to remove the tumor.  The surgery successfully removed the entire tumor with clean margins, (where tested).  They think the cancer may have originated in the skin of a salivary gland, which was removed completely.  All of this is good news, as these things go.  But Spumoni had a difficult time throughout the past few weeks, including recovery from the surgery.  He didn't react well to the anesthesia from all the tests and had complications from the surgery with serious drainage issues.  He went weeks without eating hardly anything and he was just plain miserable.  So even though our oncologist recommended following the surgery up with chemotherapy given the likelihood that there were cells left behind that would soon replicate and replicate until we were right back where we started, after many, many sleepless nights and tears and hours of discussion we have decided not to do any further treatment.  The chemo would mean three more months of putting Spumoni through treatment, and we have seen first hand how poorly he reacts to things that most dogs would be fine dealing with.  Plus, throughout this whole process the oncologist has been unable to give a prognosis of any kind, which has been frustrating and heart wrenching.  We want to do the best thing for Spumoni, to give him the best quality of life.  It is so hard not knowing if you're doing the right thing, with so little information to go on.  So we could put him through the treatment, spend the money and still lose him right away?  And we would have forced his last months of life to be horrible?  Or we could choose to let him heal from the surgery, pray that the cancer takes its time coming back (or doesn't at all!) and let him enjoy even a portion of his last summer doing everything he loves - showering him with love and affection all the while.  So we chose the latter.  And I pray that we made the right choice. 

Today, as I write this, he is almost fully recovered from the surgery and is totally back to his normal self.  We have taken him swimming at the dog beach, hiking in Open Lands, and have been going for walks every day no matter what.  We don't know how much time we have left with him, but we are going to try and savor each day! 

Between the tests and before the surgery we would take him to the dog park or hiking in Open Lands, wondering if it would be the last time we did it with him.  He wasn't himself, but he still loves going to those places.

spoiling him with a new toy which he showed a little interest in

This is him the morning before the surgery, the effects of the anesthesia from the tests were wearing off and he was more like himself.  But the surgery set him back another couple weeks.