Did you know that dogs could get melanoma?
Neither did I.
Kinda figured the hair/fur would prevent skin cancer. Turns out, not so much. Indeed, it turns out dogs can get melanoma even when not sun bathing without using sunscreen.
Jett had a small mass on his paw that was removed in early November and the lab reported just before Thanksgiving that he has malignant melanoma. Not good. It took until today to get an appointment with the Vet Oncologist.
We finally had the appointment today. There's a fantastic oncologist at Blue Pearl Animal Hospital, and she is quite simply top-notch.
The bad news: He's got an aggressive strain of malignant melanoma and it could become bad.
The good news: Thankfully there is no sign of the cancer moving to the lymph nodes or lung so we caught it early.
The other bad news: This malignant melanoma doesn't just go away and it could still become bad very quickly.
The other good news: There is treatment for dogs: an immunity booster series (incorrectly called a vaccine) to fight malignant melanoma that works 50% of the time and can potentially teach his immune system to fight it and clear it from the body,
The other other bad news: 50% of the time the immunity booster series does nothing, and it costs an arm and a leg.
Are we doing it? Obviously yes, after all, he's family.
5 comments:
Absolutely do the treatment- Jett depends on you.
What's interesting is that I've been reading a lot about such things as immunity boosters to treat cancers in humans recently. And along the way discovered that the reason Jimmy Carter is cancer free after having really bad non-operable cancer a few years ago is the use of immunity boosters as his treatment.
ProudHillbilly: Yes indeed, treatment is underway and we had the first shot administered this afternoon at the end of the appointment.
Hoping it works, it depends on the cancer giving off the right kind of stuff and his body reacting to it properly - about a 50% chance of it working but it's better than doing nothing.
I admire your efforts.
I hope you fall on the good side of the 50%.
Best wishes to you, your family and Jett.
Hoping and praying for the best - and for grace and judgment throughout the course of treatment.
B: Us too. The cost is equivalent to getting an Instrument Rating if you did it in 40 hours . . . Ouch.
DaveS: Thank you sir. He's a good dog and hopefully he will get through this.
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