Thursday, January 31, 2008

Canine Nasal Chondrosarcoma

Honey's biopsy results are back, and it's Nasal Chondrosarcoma. Our appointment with the radiologist is at 3:40 today, and they told us not to give her any food for 8 hours before the appointment, and no water for 2 hours before. I hope this means they're going to start treatment STAT. The weird thing about this is she's not acting at all sick, except that I think the antibiotics (clavamox, causes vomiting and nausea sometimes) is getting to her in the mornings, and the other day coming off the general anesthesia was tough. she’s tired, ill give her that, but last night, I believe 43 hours after her CT scan and two large biopsy samples taken from the roof of her mouth, she was bringing me her ball and catching it in midair.

Apparently Chondrosarcoms has a 10% metastasis rate, and this has not gone to her lymph nodes or her lungs, but the vet did say it was "locally aggressive" I wonder if that means she'll lose her nose? Anyways, I've only had about 25 minutes to do research so I don't have any really good sources yet, but I'm a librarian and believe in the value of facts, so ill ask the oncologist for some info and ill dredge some reliable current stuff up online from somewhere to make available to anyone else who needs info on this.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Honey's sick, I'm an Idiot.

So Honey has had some issues with her nose for a while, since we boarded her when we went to Florida for Christmas. She went through 2 courses of Clavamox and they didn't fix it, so the vet sent us to get a CT scan, which was done Monday, and they discovered a "mass" in her sinuses, which went through her hard palate. Aside from being completely beside myself because my baby is sick, I'm also having trouble handling the fact that I have to wait for a diagnosis, because that not only keeps me from doing research and figuring out what can be done, it also means that all the research I do is really broad and I keep reading these horrible doomsday predictions and the fact that they were written in 2000, and even though logically I know there is newer better information, and treatment of these HAS to have been improved in the last 8 years, I can't stop myself from imagining the worst scenario possible.

she's having trouble breathing through her nose, as the tumor (or 'mass', whatever) is taking up a lot room, and naturally the area is all pissed off and therefore inflamed and there's a secondary infection. So although she can breathe completely fine through her mouth, she won't, and there's a constant noise of her inhaling, sometimes punctuated by gasps when she is really low on air. She can't sleep because every time she begins to drift off, she remembers she can't breathe and jerks her head up and starts over. Thankfully, we have some more antibiotics, and hopefully that will help her clear an air passage. The vet said there is no way she will pass out from lack of oxygen and suffocate, and Cameron keeps assuring me that her body will take over and if she needs to, she WILL, in fact, open her mouth to breathe, but she sounds awful.

Monday she had a CT scan (and the best vet in the world - http://www.asecvets.com/) and had to stay in their ICU overnight, not because she was really in need of it, but she has never been under general anesthesia, and she had a little bleeding from the biopsies they took. Tuesday we picked her up and brought her home and she was pissed off and sick. General didn't make her feel good and she was groggy but couldn't sleep because of the breathing. Awful. Cameron had a workshop at 7:30 and I went home around 5, so she was never alone, but I screwed up royally; I decided to let her dictate what we did all evening, which to me sounds like a nice thing, but I think it freaked her out that I was getting her to decide which way we walked when I opened the door, and where we sat, etc. she has the pack ranks instilled in her so deeply, I think it was like I was asking her to lead, and while she was sick. Terrible idea and it never dawned on me. I also gave her a pain pill, which I guess she had when she was spayed, but not since, and she wigged out – racing around the house and she actually HOWLED, I’ve never heard her do that before. I seriously considered either having a nervous breakdown or taking her to the emergency vet, but she chilled out. I called the vet and they said some dogs just can’t handle opiates and she may be one of them, I swear I almost told her it was probably inherited because I’m the same way. I’m sure they already think I’m insane.

so I’ve been thinking about it, and I need something to do because I don’t care about John and Kate's plus 8, or who got arrested on Hermosa beach, and that kind of low-involvement crap makes me stress out about her more, as I’m basically just staring at the TV waiting for the next 'inhale' noise. Great, now I’m feeling guilty for doing that to her last night. That’s it; I’m printing knitting instructions off the internet and learning lace tonight.

Her appointment with the oncologist / radiologist (one of 16 board certified in the US – in the Hills, of course, - http://www.cityofangelsvets.com/) is Thursday afternoon, and I really have my fingers crossed her biopsies will be back by then because I doubt we can get another appointment before next week and I cannot sit through another weekend like last one, I’ll lose my damn mind.

I would go into the millions of possibilities about her tumor, but there are literally millions. I do know that it’s probably a malignancy, because it went through the bone of her hard palate, and I know that nasal tumors in dogs aren’t uncommon. I swear, if they had told me that years ago I would have added it to the list of stuff I worried about daily and maybe this wouldn’t have snuck up on us. I hope we got in time to do something – it’s apparently not in her lungs and not in her lymph nodes, so maybe there’s still hope.