The Beginning of Our Journey

I’m not sure if Champ’s story is unusual or not. Sorry for the length of this but if my experiences can help anyone else (like all of your’s have helped me) I am more than willing to share.

Champ is an 8 year old cocker spaniel who we adopted from Cocker Spaniel Adoption in Maryland when he was 1 year old. He has always had a history of food allergies, seasonal allergies, crystals in his urine, etc… basically some chronic health issues. But he has the BEST disposition.

In January 2010 he started limping, then stopped. Started again a few days later and we took him to the vet. Initially the vet thought it was a strain and put him on an NSAID pain reliever. Again, it stopped. In April it started again so we had xrays done thinking it might be an ACL tear. There was a lesion on the left rear femur but they wanted to wait a few weeks, do another set of xrays and see if the lesion was any different. It could have been from an injury. In May we had another set of xrays done. We were not prepared for what the radiologist confirmed… cancer.

After hours of crying I started doing some research. The initial plan was to amputate the leg followed by chemotherapy. We got an appointment with an oncologist for a consult. I am lucky living in the Hudson Valley in NY to have one of the best oncologists less than 30 minutes away. After looking at the xrays of the leg, she did an ultrasound of his abdomen and a chest xray. The chest xray was completely clear but there was a mass on his spleen.

This is where the vets and I started to disagree. The oncologist wanted to do a biopsy. I wanted a spleenectomy. A biopsy would never prove there was NO cancer, it could only confirm cancer. There was a possibility is was a benign mass. But if the first biopsy was inconclusive, we would need to do another, and another, and so on.

My regular vet agreed to do a spleenectomy the following week. Yes, it was an agressive plan but you can’t be passive with cancer. The vet’s initial reaction to the mass was that it was about the size of a ping pong ball (which is small for a spleenic tumor) and did not appear to be cancerous. He also visualized all the other abdominal organs (since the hemangiosarcoma could have metastisized to other organs easily) but found none. I’ve seen photos online of cancerous masses and they are definitely nasty looking. Unofrtunately it was confirmed as hemangiosarcoma. Fortunately, I STILL feel we caught it early as the growth was relatively small for a spleenic hemangiosarcoma. Of course the vets’ opinions differ somewhat.

My oncologist seemed to feel that the lesion on the femur was a metastatic lesion from the hemangiosarcoma because it didn’t appear like a “normal” osteosarcoma. It was towards the end of the femur and the lesion pattern was different. Given that she assumed this was a metastatic lesion she and my regular vet felt that the cancer was fairly progressed and gave us 1 – 2 months. We were devastated. The oncologist was willing to do chemo but couldn’t guarantee how long he would withstand the treatment or how well.

We did xrays of every bone in his body to confirm that there were no other lesions in any bones, the chest xrays (3 views) were all clear, the abdomen was clear, and the heart was strong and clear. He started on doxirubicin on a slow drip every 3 weeks. Each chemo treatment there was either an ultrasound of the heart or a chest xray to ensure that there was no impact on his heart from the chemo and that the cancer had not spread to his lungs. All came back perfect each time.

He handled his 5 (max lifetime) chemo treatment like the champ he is. After the last one the oncologist performed another ultrasound of the abdomen and all is perfect. I spoke with her on the phone to discuss “next steps” and mentioned that, the only cancer left in him that we KNEW of was the leg. She had also done a leg xray (as he was limping a little at times) and confirmed that the lesion in the femur had not gone away. This of course was not surprising since the blood flow to a bone is much less. The chemo had very little change of affecting this lesion successfully.

We had 2 options: radiation therapy or amputation. She agreed that the radiation would only shrink the cancer in the leg but never get rid of it. It was not curative, simplate paliative in nature. She felt that, since he was doing so well and there were no other apparent cancer growths, we could reconsider the amputation option. After that, he could go on a low-dose chemo pill for 6 months initially for maintenance. At the end of 6 months we could reassess and he could do another 6 months if we felt the need. We felt leaving the cancer there left more of a chance of it metastisizing.

I spoke to my regular vet and we all agreed that amputation was the best route. Two weeks after his last chemo treatment (which was this past Tuesday) he went to the vet for his amputation. My vet called me in the morning and said, “are you sure you want to do this and not do a biopsy first?” I had him call the oncologist who confirmed it definitely was cancer and was very aggressive.

The amputation was done Tuesday morning and he was unbelievably up and walking at 1:30 pm that day. The scar is heartbreaking to say the least. They had to amputate up to the coccyx to make sure they got all the cancer. The vet told me the bone looked very nasty and yes, definitely was cancerous. We are getting a biopsy done to find out whether it is a metastatic lesion from the hemangiosarcoma or a separate unrelated ostesarcoma. The incision is stapled and probably stitched inside as well and about 6 inches long. There is no dressing or bandage but I can put on an antibiotic cream if I want. He is on Previcox (NSAID) for pain and clavimox antibiotic. I have him in a pen with his blanket, pee pee pads, and water. We don’t want him to stress himself or for our other cocker spaniel to knock him down accidentally. She is a little neurotic and ADD… lol. I keep a Comfy Cone on him at night and have moved to the sofa to be close to him while he is recovering.

I am really trying to focus on the fact that he HAD cancer, not HAS cancer. One letter makes a world of difference.

I will keep you all posted on his progress. In two weeks his stitches/staples come out and he has an ocologist appointment to begin his chemo pills.

Joy