Sadly little McCarthy was not well last week. He was admitted to hospital and stayed overnight on a drip on Friday night (20th June) and was given a course of anti biotics. He also had blood work done to check kidneys and liver. He picked up an infection of some kind – high white blood cell count. His immune system is likely compromised post surgery and he’s little body isn’t fighting fit. 😰
However, as the week goes by, he is looking perkier, which is great!
The specialist called this evening (14/6) to advise on the long awaited pathology report, which revealed that they got clear margins of the tumor when they amputated his toes but there was destruction to the bone in those toes (it’s an aggressive cancer), which means there might be microscopic spread, no one will be able to tell for sure at this stage. As a precaution he suggested four treatments of chemo over an 8 week period. Some dogs do fine on chemo, others not, and 1-2% can die from it. The other option is to leave it and do another CT scan in a few months to see if it has spread and only do chemo then. Amputating the leg isn’t recommended as we don’t know if there was microscopic spread, so that operation may not make a difference if it has spread microscopically which the scans won’t pick up. I’m glad we don’t have to amputate the leg. But now I must make the big decision on chemo as a precaution or not. It’s such a rare cancer so the specialist can’t even compare to previous cases and treatments as there aren’t any from his experience. Other cancers have had a good response to chemo in dogs. If I’m going to do it I’ll rather do it now than wait, but I need some wisdom and more prayer with this decision as I don’t want to ruin his quality of life if chemo makes him very sick, but dogs apparently respond better than humans to chemo. Regarding the weekend hospitalization and tests, his renal blood tests are on the high end of normal, but not abnormal. He might have to have
Regarding the weekend hospitalisation and tests, his renal blood tests are on the high end of normal, but not abnormal. He might have to have bloods taken again this week to make sure the infection from the weekend has cleared, if not, longer course of anti biotics will be necessary, but if he looks well enough, then probably don’t need to retest. He looks better tonight than he has since last week and ate well for the first time in a week, so hopefully the infection is clearing. It’s been such an emotionally stressful time.
If any of you have had any experience with a little dog with Eccrine Carcinoma being treated with chemo, I would love to hear from you as to the outcome…
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I’m so glad to hear things are going better for McCarthy.
Yes, most dogs do much better on chemo than we ever anticipate. Stop by our forums and you can learn from others who have been there and totally get your concerns.
I hope things are going well!