blkandwhtecrazy Posted February 7, 2007 Report Share Posted February 7, 2007 I need help in any information concerning a mass or tumor that was just found on my 9 year old BC. He is having trouble opening his jaw wide enough to play but he is okay to eat and drink. His whole world is playing ball. My vet did a dental to look for abcesses and he found nothing so we were refered to a specialist and he found a mass on the left side of the jaw under the eye, where the jaw pivots. We did a biopsy and it came back unconclusive. However it is maglignant and aggressive. Now the specilaist wants a CT Scan to see if it is operable and if it is in the bone. Has anyone elso had any experiences with similar issues? Please help---any information is welcome. :confused: :confused: :confused: Thanks ,Blkandwhiecrazy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dixie_Girl Posted February 7, 2007 Report Share Posted February 7, 2007 No, sorry I don't, but wanted to say how sorry I am that your dog is going through this. I will pray it is something fixable. Hang in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK dog doc Posted February 7, 2007 Report Share Posted February 7, 2007 My first dog (just the COOLEST little mutt, who I still miss) had a retrobulbar (behind the eye) tumor when I was in vet school. The prognosis in your case would depend on the tumor type and how invasive it is already, so bear that always in mind while reading this. In my dog's case, the tumor was diagnosed when she was 10 and she lived to 14. That's a good outcome; not everyone will get one as good, but it is certainly possible. I got 4 years and 3 months with her after her diagnosis, and I made sure they were the best 4 years and 3 months of her life. I'm VERY glad I went ahead with treatment - but I must caution you that EVERY CASE IS DIFFERENT, and you must make your own decisions based on what your vets tell you is going on, and what you feel is appropriate for you and for your dog. A CT scan is an excellent first step. I (a freshman vet student, who knew just enough to be a real pain) was worried about the amount of radiation from the test, but the optho resident who had her case said "I would have this procedure done on my four year old daughter." That gave me a sense of the level of safety. In my case, the tumor was operable, but histopath showed one questionable cell at the very back margin of the tissue removed (where the optic nerve enters the brain). After some consideration I elected to follow up with radiation therapy. That was three weeks, and about 10 days of it was challenging for me and for my dog. After that she bounced back and had the time of her life. I think that 10 challenging days was a fair trade for 4 good years. Obviously we can't ask her, but I'd bet she would agree. I will note that the tumor in my dog's case arose from the optic nerve. She was blind in that eye and had some pain from the tumor pressing on sensitive structures. The surgery DID involve removing the eye. I was very resistant to this at first (just the idea of it, since we spent a lot of time looking into each other's eyes for certain social games we enjoyed). However, the eye was already useless to her and causing her pain. (She did in fact feel better IMMEDIATELY after surgery, which let me know how much of her pain she had been disguising.) *I* didn't feel better about it (not all the way, anyhow) until 3 days later when a friend who had come over to study said to her, "ARRRR, Captain Merrik!" in a piratey voice, and then turned to me, beaming, and said, "I think one-eyed dogs are so cool!" Then all of a sudden it seemed different to me. Instead of thinking: My dog is maimed, I started thinking: Yeah, one-eyed dogs are SO COOL. But I digress. If you elect to pursue treatment, I would ask whatever questions you have up front. They may not be able to answer all of them. In my case, one they could NOT answer was how long my dog would have if she DID have radiation, VS how long if not. In the end I just had to make my choice based on what I could best live with if I didn't get the outcome I wanted. (For instance, how would I feel if I did radiation and she died in a few months anyway? How would I feel if I did NOT do radiation and she died in a few months anyway? Which one can I live with better?) In the end, I decided she was a tough little dog who I felt could handle the treatments, and I needed to give her HER best shot. All I could do was give her every chance to get well. After that it was up to her what she made of the chance I gave her. THAT, I could live with. The CT scan might be QUITE important in determining if the tumor is even operable, and that would be very important to how you proceed. One of the hardest things is not being able to ask THE DOG how he feels about the procedures. One thing you can be pretty sure of is he doesn't want to be in pain. If surgery would decrease his pain, there's a good reason for considering it right there. In my case the only thing I would say wasn't perfect about her care was that in retrospect they wished they'd gone just a liiiittle farther back on her scan (they didn't scan as much of her brain as they later wished they had, looking for spread into her brain from the primary tumor... maybe one more centimeter would have been good. But in the end it came out well anyway.) She did have side effects during radiation (this was NOT the fault of her care, but just her individual reaction), but we managed those and she bounced back. Treatment wasn't cheap, and I was a vet student. Despite the student discount, it was about $2000. I would happily have paid $10 a day to see her jump up and down as if on springs every day when I cmae home, so if you look at it that way, it was cheap. If you pro-rated that over the 10 prior years of her life - $200 a year. Cheap. So I was very happy to pay it. Ultimately, this is a tough decision and you're trying to make it while very stressed and worried about your beloved dog. It's difficult. That's undeniable. Eventually, no matter what we do, ALL of us are going to reach the end of our road. That's also undeniable. The trick is to make the choices you can live with the best, and be at peace with the consequences. I wish you the VERY best with this. As you might imagine, having been in a very similar position to what you are now, my heart goes out to you. I'll try to check back on this thread to see if I've answered your questions. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.