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Jan, I read with my heart in my mouth Dash's updates. I absolutely know what you went through. Thank GOODNESS and I hope it was just the fires causing this.
Erica, I am also praying for you and Scout. I hope it isn't back. Please let us know what the oncologist suggests.
I am also praying here for all the pups and owners going thru this awful disease. as well as the ones who sadly lost the battle.
Dash, that photo broke my heart. that was exactly what Oscar looked like on his "last day". totally swollen and barely could open his eye. sometimes I wonder if I should have waited, especially now that I see Dash's swelling has gone down. but all indications with Oscar that day told me otherwise- he had that " I give up" look. and we all know our babies so well, don't we?
whenever I second guess myself ( did I let Oscar go too soon? too late?, etc) I try to remember this. it was in a sympathy card I got from a friend
Why?
That's what we ask,
The truth is,
we may never
be able to know
for sure why.
But we do know
that there is no single
"should have done"
or "could have done"
or "did" or "didn't do"
that would have
changed that why.
Years ago with my 14 yr old cocker that had heart issues and developed lymphoma though she was doing Ok at the time my vet said something very comforting to me. He said "from this day forward that there would be not a wrong time to make the decision to put her down." IE.. She was not going to get better so it just depended on how many rough days I wanted to make her and I deal with. So don't beat yourself up as with cancers there really is no wrong time as for many animals and people the downtimes just over shadow the good days and they want it all to end. I agree you do usually know as they do have a way of telling you.It was the look my old cocker gave me as she stood looking at her food not able to eat it that just said "Its time". Of course I wavered and she then took the decision from me . I posted avout it in a much earlier post.
Dash on the other hand is a tough old guy and the look he gave me with his one eye when the other was swollen closed seemed to be saying " well what are we going to do now? You do have a plan don't you?" Yes Tuesday he was very down but he would look at me and I did not get the vibe that he was asking me to end it all. I did think he might do so himself and wondered if I should but I never got that vibe from him that this was enough or I would have done so. That border collie blood makes him go until the very end.
I had a cat with cancer at the base of her tongue and while she had not told me it was time and probably could have lived another month or so before things got ugly I made the decision when I noticed that the very tip of her tongue was turning black so was becoming necrotic ( dead). She was a great cat and I just felt I could not watch her go downhill so I called the vet made catnip tea for her and got her high on it. At the vets she was purring and enjoying all the attention and then got the injection and the purring stopped and she was gone. She never knew what was coming, was happy as can be right to that last moment and it was actually a beautiful death and I have never regretted it and doing it when I did as it felt right for her.
Dash is having a very good day today ate breakfast with gusto then jumped up in my lap for some loving.He and I took the Honda to the car wash then went to the park for a walk and he actually did fine on the walk and was in no rush to get back to my car like on previous days when we have tried walking at the park. I have been giving him more protein as I have noticed he does do better when he gets more protein, the down side is it does make his BUN go up but at his point I think that is a rather mute point and will try to make it high quality proteins to help avoid that. We are just going day by day at this point and getting him past this infection is the #1 goal at the moment.
I hope everyone has a good memorial day weekend and that the dogs all get to enjoy the long weekend too. Give hugs to all those pups! Jan
My dog started her first nose bleed on May 10th and my vet has confirmed her infection has turned into a nasal tumor, my vet never recommended any treatment b/c my dog is turning 15 in June and it is too much for her age to handle. So I've researched online and many people are doing hollistic approach. I have spoke with this with my vet and she did recommend one herbal remedy's vet to seek second opinion. However, the herbal vet won't be back in town until June. For now I feel helpless seeing my dog's condition getting worse with her deformed face and swelling on her face as well, and yes lots of snorting breathing going on starting this week and I just want June to be here already!!!
She is taking metacam (pain killer, anti inflammatory) vitamins, and antibiotics. She is eating still and getting her 3 walks/ day. Please give me as much info as you can. Thank you!!!
I will keep this brief and will post more detail later. After every possible step taken (like Dash's mom Jan) to prevent cancer as we've gone through this before with our first Airedale (osteosarcoma of the palate) our almost 9 year old Airedale Ginger had a rhinoscopy on Thursday and we have seen the devil played back on video tape. We are waiting for the results of the biopsy and cultures but it doesn't look good to the vet or to us.
I have read every page from first to last of this thread. I've laughed at the funny things your dogs do, cried and grieved with you as we go down this road again. I've also written down information that I'm sure will be useful to us in our quest to keep Ginger as comfortable as possible while hopefully giving her more quality time. Unfortunately we live in an area of the country that has no advanced medical treatment for pets and what we can do will be limited. We will start with dietary support until we know what it is that we are facing.
I'm sure I'll have more questions later. THANK YOU! for this thread, you folks are the best.
I suspect people are away for the holiday weekend. I read through the entire thread (admittedly at times a tough read) with a notepad and wrote down names of medications, herbal formulas etc. Get that info, Google those items, Google nasal cancer in dogs or just general cancer and start working on it while you wait. We don't have a holistic veterinarian practice locally and internet research will be a way of life for us. Best of luck and prayers for your poor pup.
Sorry it has been avery hectic few days worked all weekend and with and young Dazzle with his needs instead of getting on the computer much I have been falling alseep as I have been exhausted.
AK Cathy gave you some great advice about reading the previous posts and writing down the different things we all are trying. I don't know if Metacam, has the same antiangiogenic properties as Piroxicam ( both are the same type of drugs) if not you might want to ask the vet if you can switch to the piroxicam as it does help stop tumors from developing new blood supplies so it starves. I just met a man that owns a feed store with a self wash dog wash that I took the dogs too and his 14 yr old lab died earlier this year form nasal cancer , He used a mushroom product and seacure and the dog lived over a year.
It would appear that alot of the swelling Dash has on his muzzle these past few months may be related to infection as if I push on it it cases a major ooze of dark black (old) blood and snot . The snot use to be yellow and pus like but he has been on his antibiotics for over a week now. The swelling changes size and shape day by day so I am wondering if it might be a pocket of infection from a wound caused by the neoplasene when he sneezed out some of those big chunks of tissue. My regular vet feels it is the cancer as he claims after awhile the tumors can get soft like that and become pockets of infection but being he is on the neoplasene and no one has that much experience with it and I know with external tumors the wounds left behind can become major infections I do have to wonder?
We may start doing a pulse type antibiotic therapy on Dash to try to keep infections down. One of the antibiotics does have some effect on tumor growth..not sure if it is antiangiogenic or what but will find out as I would prefer that one for the pulse therapy. He just had blood work done by my vet for the oncologist and the oncologist office called and their only concern was the high WBC so they wanted to make sure he was getting antibiotics. Then My regular vet called and told me to make sure the oncologist addressed the low thyroid and if not to call him. Well they didn't address it so now I call my vet. I guess Dash's thyroid level has dropped way out. That could be another reason he is not as peppy as he had been. I will say since starting his antibiotics he is doing better and has gone on some walks and gets up on my bed and follows me around so he is much better then he had been He and Dazzle went for baths yesterday so he is looking pretty good right now. He is eating well too. Jazz got to miss the bath as she never seems to get dirty of to have a bad odor.
AK-Cathy Sorry to hear about your dog. I do hope it is not cancer .It is such a bummer when you do everything right to prevent cancer and your dogs get it then the guy next door who ignores his dog, feeds him the cheapest food out of plastic bowls , uses all sorts of yard and house chemicals has a dog the lives a healthy 14-15 years! Go figure! Do let us know what the test results are.
I hope everyone else had a good weekend and that all the pooches are doing well.
I am always glad to hear that this post is helping others as that is one reason I started it. So keep posting both your ups and downs as it may be helpful to someone else. Time to go walk dogs... Jan
Jan, I'm glad to hear that antibiotics are helping Dash. Scout, too, is on another round. I'm still trying to connect with our old oncologist after our first nosebleed last week, but I decided to start the antibiotic anyway. They always seem to help, and, while he still is a little sniffly and drippy, especially in the morning, he's doing better. I have a hard time telling if he has an infection or if the drippiness is due to tumor/radiation. I'd love to hear more about the antiangiogenic antibiotic when you find out more. I'm also leaning toward starting piroxicam to see what it does for us. It's so hard to know what to do...
Scout is happy and active as ever, though, so I guess I can't complain too much. Knowing where this awful disease leads is scary and it causes me to fret at every little sign of it.
Hello,
It's been awhile since I last posted and I'm so sorry to hear of the new 'developments', infections, losses and progressions of disease for everyone. What a battle. I'm hoping everyone hangs in there, copes well and any new meds or procedures you try bring healing and relief.
Allie is 1 month 4 days past her last radiation treatment and doing well. So far, so good. Her hair loss progressed but her symptoms from the radiation (mainly sores on skin and gums) only really lasted about a week and a half and continued to get better throughout that time. It was better than I expected for such an agressive treatment. She had some hard nights, but overall did really really well with the 18 treatments and the side effects afterwards. She continues with the reverse sneezing, that's never really gone away. Could be drainage from the tumor shrinking, could be the tumor. Who knows.
I was interested to read what Jan wrote about one man's mushroom supplement he was giving to his dog. We continue plugging on with the 'cancer diet' of white meat and veggies, grain free dog food and her supplement called CAS Options for Canines. It's basically an overall 'immune booster' with a blend of mushrooms (from the CAS site...proteoglycans and polysaccharides from mushrooms have been shown to nutritionally assist the immune system, reduce inflammation and can stimulate natural killer (NK) and T-helper cell activity) antioxidants, coenzyme Q-10. And her Deramaxx. So far, so good.
There are so many options and things to try it does get overwhelming. Reading everyone's posts about what they are doing and what they try is so helpful.
At this time we will not be doing a follow up CT scan to see how the tumor responded to the radiation....we won't put her through another round of the definitive radiation at 13, so it seems pointless for us to know how well it did or did not work. We will just enjoy her daily and hope for the best...
Thinking about everyone out there and hoping for good news, restful nights and lots of healing!!
-B
Well we got the dreaded call this evening. Ginger has nasal adenocarcinoma in her left nostril roughly 2" in centered in the nasal passage. I suppose if there is good news, the tumor cells were well defined so the cancer is not terribly aggressive and the X-rays showed no involvement with the turbinate bones so it's a fairly early catch. We have no radiation facilities, no CAT scan diagnostics, nor naturopathic vet practice up here unfortunately so our treatment will probably be pretty conservative focusing on management of symptoms and pain.
We are going to use Deramaxx for it's anti-tumor properties and we have started the Budwig cottage cheese and flax seed oil for nutritional support. She also is on a low dose pain medication to deal with pain and anxiety. We have also moved her over to Evo ultra low carb food. We will consider chicken and vegetable diet but she tends to get the runs with new food and home feeding though she's doing fine on Evo.
It's heartbreaking news but we were prepared for it after the scoping. I will go through my notes to investigate the mushrooms and other things mentioned on this list. I'm sure I'll have questions later. I thought I'd let you all know. Thanks for listening.
Cathy aka Ginger's mom
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Another Ginger here
He and Dazzle went for baths yesterday so he is looking pretty good right now. He is eating well too. Jazz got to miss the bath as she never seems to get dirty of to have a bad odor. 
