Amore: C-Suvivor Dog

Yesterday, I updated you about me.  Today, I update you on my Amore’.

Tuesday, my big dog got his stitches out.  I found out more details about the surgery, and about the results of the biopsy of his large vascular tumor.

There are two types of vascular tumors—one is benign and one is cancerous.  I didn’t research anything about vascular tumors until Amore’ was out of surgery, and I did not call to ask what the cytology results were before our follow-up appointment.

Amore’ had the cancerous type.  These tumors are relatively slow-moving, so they really cannot be treated with chemotherapy drugs to prevent their recurrence elsewhere in the body.  We were lucky that Big Dog’s was in the layers of fat in the skin (subcutaneous), although his had moved its way into his muscles as it had hemorrhaged (bled out) and grew.

While he was under anesthesia, they did x-rays of his heart, lungs, spleen and other organs these vascular tumors are known to metastasize into, and these were clear.  That is good news because these tumors always hemorrhage, and in those organs, it is fatal when that happens.

My dogs do not know what cancer means.  They do not understand talk of prognosis.  They do not care about such things—only the right here, right now is of their concern.  I have decided to adopt this mentality for C-dog.  I will be checking their fatty tumors for any changes, but will try not to do this every five seconds (as I have since Tuesday). 😉

I learned years ago, both prior to the intrathecal baclofen pump and after, that believing a prognosis that is generally a doctor’s best guess, doesn’t serve me in terms of quality of life with a progressive illness.  I have proved it wrong time and time again. There is no reason to believe any differently for Amore’s diagnosis.

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• Lessons from Amore (thetawny.wordpress.com)