Puppy Snuggles: The Oncologist

Yesterday, September 21st, we took Bovver boy to meet his oncologist Dr. Schrempp. Bovver had a pretty steady and rapid decline since the news last Friday that he had T-Cell Lymphoma. It seemed that his medication for Myasthenia Gravis wasn't working very well anymore. His appetite disappeared, he had horrible diarrhea and vomiting spells, he was often salivating profusely and he was again unable to walk. Just as fast as he got better he got worse.

When we parked the car in the parking lot Bovver was anxious to get out. Eric opened the side door thinking he would have enough time to pick Bovver up and carry him inside, but Bovver decided to jump right out of the car on his own. He collapsed pretty immediately and scraped up his chin and elbows, but was alright. We got him inside and he started to have uncontrollable diarrhea. It was literally falling out of him as we scooped him up and took him into a room. On top of that he was salivating everywhere and that was mixing with the blood from his chin scrape. So we left the waiting room with a trail of blood, slobber and shit and made our way in to meet Dr. Schrempp for the first time.

She went over all of the options available to us and went over the pros and cons for each:

1. Bone Marrow Transplant

• Possible cure, only 13 transplants in the US so far
• Hard to find a donor, so they use the dog's own bone marrow which increases the chance of the cancer coming back
• $20,000 plus travel to Los Angeles

2. CHOP Chemotherapy

• 70% of patients obtain remission
• Intravenous treatment every week (some treatments take 2 hours)
• Higher rates of side effects including painful side effects from the drug Vincristine
• 6 months remission
• $6,500

3. Doxorubicin Only

• 80% of patients obtain remission
• Intravenous drip treatment (2 hours) every 3 weeks
• 2/3 remission time of CHOP
• $3,500

4. Lomustine Only

• 70% of patients obtain remission
• Oral treatment once every 3 weeks
• 1/2 remission time of CHOP (for B-Cell Lymphoma)
• Reacts particularly well to T-Cell Lymphoma 
• $2,000

5. Prednisone

• No Remission
• Dog creates resistance to medicine in 6-8 weeks
• $20-80

We are taking the night to weigh our options and think about what we want for our boy, what HE wants, and what, ultimately, we can afford.