lymphoma-chemo-so many questions ??
- Thread starter ShannonB
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Yellowsnow.
Boxer Pal
Lymphoma
I had already searched all the sights on the web and was 99.9% sure that it was cancer due to her symptoms. Lose of weight, loss of hair, odor, not keeping anything down. He did not do any test, he did feel her lymph nodes and stated that he could do test but was positive that was what it was. I did not want to do the chemo. The chemo came with no guarantees that it would cure it. She was pushing the life expectancy of most boxers.
Please don't misunderstand me, she was very important to our family. I was raised on a farm. We did and still do alot of our own vet work. Until recently I didn't even know that they did cancer treatments. At any rate it made no since to spend that amount of cash on a dog that had led a full life. So we made the descion to make her comfortable and it was the right descion. Here at this forum I see many that do the chemo and only got five months. We didn't do the chemo and got five months of quality life. And it gave the us and the boys time to adjust. I can't say it made it easier, because its soo hard to say good bye.
I had already searched all the sights on the web and was 99.9% sure that it was cancer due to her symptoms. Lose of weight, loss of hair, odor, not keeping anything down. He did not do any test, he did feel her lymph nodes and stated that he could do test but was positive that was what it was. I did not want to do the chemo. The chemo came with no guarantees that it would cure it. She was pushing the life expectancy of most boxers.
Please don't misunderstand me, she was very important to our family. I was raised on a farm. We did and still do alot of our own vet work. Until recently I didn't even know that they did cancer treatments. At any rate it made no since to spend that amount of cash on a dog that had led a full life. So we made the descion to make her comfortable and it was the right descion. Here at this forum I see many that do the chemo and only got five months. We didn't do the chemo and got five months of quality life. And it gave the us and the boys time to adjust. I can't say it made it easier, because its soo hard to say good bye.
lymphoma
I am still learning so much about this awful disease-Tami-what does the prednisone do? I am wondering if that is something we could look to for when Cody comes out of remission. I don't fault anyone for not doing chemo-I think it is a very personal/painful/extremely hard decision to make. We had originally said a firm "no" to chemo because we didn't think we could afford it and we knew it wasn't a cure-just a temporary stop to the cancer. But we did in the end decide for it just hoping for more time (Cody is only 7 and we felt like he was just too young not to go for it if there was any way we could swing it) But as I said-chemo is a very hard decision to make. I still sometimes wonder if we have done the right thing knowing an end to the remission is enevitable. I would be interested in hearing about the prednisone-My husband is in the military and we will be finding out this week if he is to go to Bosnia for 6 months. I am terrified of Cody becoming sick again while he is gone and my having to handle that final visit to the vet alone-maybe the prednisone could help Cody feel good until he were to come home? Thanks for any help and thanks again to everyone for being so supportive
Shannon
I am still learning so much about this awful disease-Tami-what does the prednisone do? I am wondering if that is something we could look to for when Cody comes out of remission. I don't fault anyone for not doing chemo-I think it is a very personal/painful/extremely hard decision to make. We had originally said a firm "no" to chemo because we didn't think we could afford it and we knew it wasn't a cure-just a temporary stop to the cancer. But we did in the end decide for it just hoping for more time (Cody is only 7 and we felt like he was just too young not to go for it if there was any way we could swing it) But as I said-chemo is a very hard decision to make. I still sometimes wonder if we have done the right thing knowing an end to the remission is enevitable. I would be interested in hearing about the prednisone-My husband is in the military and we will be finding out this week if he is to go to Bosnia for 6 months. I am terrified of Cody becoming sick again while he is gone and my having to handle that final visit to the vet alone-maybe the prednisone could help Cody feel good until he were to come home? Thanks for any help and thanks again to everyone for being so supportive
Shannon
iluvboxers
Super Boxer
thanks, they just feel it was something underlying that they didn't catch. Guess it doesn't matter now anyway. I would have to think twice about the chemo. One of my favorite animals in the world lost his life during the treatment when they had him under. It was at a vet college so not as if they were not qualified. My vet told me once that he was scheduled to take a dog to his chemo while at Auburn and he knew the stress it put this animal through. He skipped it and took him for ice cream instead. His instructors gave him a lot of bs over it but he said those dog kisses made it all worth while. He belives in quality and not so much quanity of life. You just have to go with your heart.
Yellowsnow.
Boxer Pal
lympoma
Not for sure. I have taken prednisone in human format for arthritis. I assume it is the same it is a very potient anti- inflamatory. It effects the body all over. I'll see if I can look it up.
Not for sure. I have taken prednisone in human format for arthritis. I assume it is the same it is a very potient anti- inflamatory. It effects the body all over. I'll see if I can look it up.
Yellowsnow.
Boxer Pal
lympoma
Not for sure. I have taken prednisone in human format for arthritis. I assume it is the same it is a very potient anti- inflamatory. It effects the body all over. I'll see if I can look it up.
Not for sure. I have taken prednisone in human format for arthritis. I assume it is the same it is a very potient anti- inflamatory. It effects the body all over. I'll see if I can look it up.
boxer4
Boxer Insane
Shannon, I think I can give you the answer about prednisone. My vet explained to me that it shrinks the membrame around the growth (lymph nodes in this case) and makes the pressure on them less. When Dutch was first diagnoised he started her on prednisone right way. The lymph nodes shrunk down within one day and in her case made it easier to breath, (she had been having a difficult time with it and also coughing) I was so happy she seemed so much better from just the pred. but as the vet explained in time you need to keep uping the dose because the cancer is still growing, and sooner or later it would never be enough on its own and would in time cause ulcers in he stomach and intestines if used in high doses. So we started chemo and prednisone normally they are both used in treatment. She had to be on zantac as well to keep her stomach in check ,in the end she was also taking pepto bismal at bed time. The only problem was when we tried the second series of chemo the drugs were harder on her system and the prednisone dose had to go up and even with the zantac and pepto she started bleeding internally, the drugs had destroyed alot of red blood cells and the pred made her blood too thin to clot right. As I said she went through the first chemo with very little problems. I would definatly ask your vet about the prednisone I am suprised he isn`t giving it to her already. I have a book with the different chemo drugs that they will use and it also talks about prednisone as being necessary in treatment. I`ll try and scan to page and send it to you if you want. Sorry to ramble on so but I get very passionate about informing people on this. It will be 3years on Septeber 5th I lost Dutch to this horrible disease it and it still feels like yesterday. Hope, I could be of help to you.
lymphoma
All,
I apologize for responding to such an old thread but I'm rather new to the site and was looking for info on lymphona. Our 7 yr. old female, Roxanne, was diagnosed 7 weeks ago when we took her in to check out a lump in her groin. The vet said it was a lymph node and upon exam found another near her scapula. He did a needle aspiration and it was confirmed to be cancer. We chose not to go with the chemo. Now I'm having second thoughts after hearing all the positive results. She is on prednisone and pepcid, 10 mg of each once a day. The nodes shrank within a day of starting the pred (we started with 10 mg. twice a day). About 2 weeks ago, we noticed a node starting to swell under her jawline. Other than that, she seems great. The vet said we may have a few more weeks but not much more. I was encouraged to hear to some of you had excellent results with the prednisone. If it's not too painful, I'd like to hear from others on your experience with this treatment (side effects, the amount of time it bought, etc.). Thanks for all the great info and support. This site has helped me immensely. I no longer cry everyday (just sometimes).
All,
I apologize for responding to such an old thread but I'm rather new to the site and was looking for info on lymphona. Our 7 yr. old female, Roxanne, was diagnosed 7 weeks ago when we took her in to check out a lump in her groin. The vet said it was a lymph node and upon exam found another near her scapula. He did a needle aspiration and it was confirmed to be cancer. We chose not to go with the chemo. Now I'm having second thoughts after hearing all the positive results. She is on prednisone and pepcid, 10 mg of each once a day. The nodes shrank within a day of starting the pred (we started with 10 mg. twice a day). About 2 weeks ago, we noticed a node starting to swell under her jawline. Other than that, she seems great. The vet said we may have a few more weeks but not much more. I was encouraged to hear to some of you had excellent results with the prednisone. If it's not too painful, I'd like to hear from others on your experience with this treatment (side effects, the amount of time it bought, etc.). Thanks for all the great info and support. This site has helped me immensely. I no longer cry everyday (just sometimes).
Adelle
Boxer Insane
Hi Karen
I know what you are going through rigth now and how devastating it is to find out our babies have cancer.
I have a 9 year old male boxer 'Hooligan' who was diagnosed with Lymphoma nearly 7 months ago and we decided to go the chemo therapy route. I was unsure at first but 7 months later I would highly recommend it, chemo therapy has give us 7 months more than we would have had otherwise, and will hopfully give us another 7 months or more if we are lucky. I know of people who have just treated with Prednisone and unfortunately it may only help for a couple of months.
Hooligan has done really well, he had a few bad reactions during the first month where he was sick after chemo, but once we figured out which drugs did not agree with him we reduced the dosage and gave him other medication to help settle his tummy before he got sick which really worked and the last 6 months he has not been sick at all, in fact he now has so much energy he reminds me of when he was 5 years old.
I know a lot of people shy away from chemo as they think it effects their quality of life but so far that has not been the case for us. But it is expensive especially the first 10 weeks where we had to go once a week, now we go once every 3 weeks and soon it will be once every 4 weeks.
Its a scary time, please feel free to contact me with any questions I would be more than happy to share anything I have learned over the last 7 months with you.
Adelle
I know what you are going through rigth now and how devastating it is to find out our babies have cancer.
I have a 9 year old male boxer 'Hooligan' who was diagnosed with Lymphoma nearly 7 months ago and we decided to go the chemo therapy route. I was unsure at first but 7 months later I would highly recommend it, chemo therapy has give us 7 months more than we would have had otherwise, and will hopfully give us another 7 months or more if we are lucky. I know of people who have just treated with Prednisone and unfortunately it may only help for a couple of months.
Hooligan has done really well, he had a few bad reactions during the first month where he was sick after chemo, but once we figured out which drugs did not agree with him we reduced the dosage and gave him other medication to help settle his tummy before he got sick which really worked and the last 6 months he has not been sick at all, in fact he now has so much energy he reminds me of when he was 5 years old.
I know a lot of people shy away from chemo as they think it effects their quality of life but so far that has not been the case for us. But it is expensive especially the first 10 weeks where we had to go once a week, now we go once every 3 weeks and soon it will be once every 4 weeks.
Its a scary time, please feel free to contact me with any questions I would be more than happy to share anything I have learned over the last 7 months with you.
Adelle
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