and just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse…
they didn’t do the CT scan on mollie because they found that the reason her lymph nodes are so enlarged is because she has lymphoma. this is such aggressive cancer that if it’s not treated, she could die in a month.
she got her first chemo yesterday. they said it’s not like chemo for people, it shouldn’t be bad, she might throw up or something, but many dogs don’t have any reaction. we’ll find this out in a few days. right now she’s sprawled out on the couch, happily sleeping. so there’s one good thing.
because they can’t give animals the high doses of chemo, it could go into remission after a month, but then they give her more chemo, because it can come back.
it WILL come back – the average life expectancy is one year, and then the lymphoma will come back, more aggressively.
so we’re going to try to make it mollie’s best year ever. lots of treats and walks and whatever she wants, hopefully not letting her put on 300 extra pounds. doggie cocktails. doggie amusement parks. doggie dinners at dog-friendly restaurants. doggie campouts.
we have to take her to the U of I every week for six months for the chemo – i think it’s only every two weeks after some period of time.
we took her yesterday at 11:30 and didn’t leave the hospital til after 5:00. they did an ultrasound on the big liver mass – the vet had thought it was part of the lymphoma, but it’s not, it’s yet another kind of cancer. the vet was concerned that it could be something aggressive, but i don’t even remember her saying that last night. maybe we were too over-saturated already with bad news.
the vet called this morning to say she felt good that the liver tumor is NOT aggressive, it could, indeed, be a harmless growth, and it’s slow-growing.
after a month of chemo, they will evaluate how she’s progressing, and then they could do the CT scan and remove the mass.
oh boy.
here she is, waiting to get the hell outta there last evening. she was SO HAPPY to see us when they finally brought her out that she kept leaping up on me. we had to go back into this room, and wait for the vet to get some drugs in case of side effects.
we waited probably another half hour, and mollie was so exhausted that she fell asleep for a little bit.
we bought her a mcdonald’s hamburger on the way out of town, and kevin and i also had burgers, then i gave mollie the sack so she could tear the wrappers to shreds. then she slept quite a bit all the way home.
so…that is all for now.
ok then,
gh