Beagely Bassity De-bunk
2 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 09 May 2008 at 5/09/2008 11:13:00 am.
The universe might be working against me at the moment, but the animal kingdom is being very good to me.
My dear old beagle finally got his biopsy results back today after almost a month of waiting. He has a very special type of cancer, and lo and behold: it's a type of cancer that doesn't spread through the blood! This is fantastic news because while his tumor will continue to grow in it's locality, we don't have to worry about it spreading into his nearby lymph nodes and filtering all throughout his body (which was the worry before).
The gorgeous wonderful amazing lovely vet (New Vet) says while you can treat cancer in dogs with meds nowadays, they are extremely toxic and hard-hitting and will bring an old dog to its knees in pain if you administer them. So really, the best thing we can do for him is continue to let the lump grow until it gets uncomfortable, and then bring him in to have it operated on and removed. As long as that doesn't get too much more frequent than a couple times a year, as the operation and anesthesia is also very hard on the old boy.
So for now, we can actually just live with it, and at the same time not have to live in the constant state of fear that we were.
The morale of this story is: even if you fear the worst, ASK FOR TESTS TO BE DONE. DEMAND A DIAGNOSIS. Several vets I've dealt with will often just stop at an observation ("it's probably cancer". yeah, well what kind?) I can only imagine Old Vet's handling of this exact same situation, had we stuck with him: "well, he's got a lump that grows back every time we remove it, so, probably cancerous. Sorry. We're not sure how much longer he has. Oh well, he's old."
And on top of that, had a really good board meeting with the animal people last night. A few glasses of wine and some pizza in J.'s office's conference room, and 4 hours later we've solved a myriad of funding and logistical nightmares for at least the next month. Animal welfare people really make the best committees you can imagine. Even though we have to discuss horrible issues such as how many shelter pups have to be euthanized in the coming weeks, or the shelter employees stealing donated food to sell it off and what to do about it, you just get the feeling you're doing something that matters, with people who are decent.
As my old boss John always said: "you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat animals". I've always remembered that, and have not yet found a case where it wouldn't apply.
My dear old beagle finally got his biopsy results back today after almost a month of waiting. He has a very special type of cancer, and lo and behold: it's a type of cancer that doesn't spread through the blood! This is fantastic news because while his tumor will continue to grow in it's locality, we don't have to worry about it spreading into his nearby lymph nodes and filtering all throughout his body (which was the worry before).
The gorgeous wonderful amazing lovely vet (New Vet) says while you can treat cancer in dogs with meds nowadays, they are extremely toxic and hard-hitting and will bring an old dog to its knees in pain if you administer them. So really, the best thing we can do for him is continue to let the lump grow until it gets uncomfortable, and then bring him in to have it operated on and removed. As long as that doesn't get too much more frequent than a couple times a year, as the operation and anesthesia is also very hard on the old boy.
So for now, we can actually just live with it, and at the same time not have to live in the constant state of fear that we were.
The morale of this story is: even if you fear the worst, ASK FOR TESTS TO BE DONE. DEMAND A DIAGNOSIS. Several vets I've dealt with will often just stop at an observation ("it's probably cancer". yeah, well what kind?) I can only imagine Old Vet's handling of this exact same situation, had we stuck with him: "well, he's got a lump that grows back every time we remove it, so, probably cancerous. Sorry. We're not sure how much longer he has. Oh well, he's old."
And on top of that, had a really good board meeting with the animal people last night. A few glasses of wine and some pizza in J.'s office's conference room, and 4 hours later we've solved a myriad of funding and logistical nightmares for at least the next month. Animal welfare people really make the best committees you can imagine. Even though we have to discuss horrible issues such as how many shelter pups have to be euthanized in the coming weeks, or the shelter employees stealing donated food to sell it off and what to do about it, you just get the feeling you're doing something that matters, with people who are decent.
As my old boss John always said: "you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat animals". I've always remembered that, and have not yet found a case where it wouldn't apply.
Glad to hear that your old beagle will be OK. That sounds really scary. Gabby is curled up asleep on the bed. Time to bug her again. Here, beagley beagley bassety...
AAAWWWWWWWWWWWWW Yay yay yay yay yay for Reggie!! Butter all around!