Our 11 year old lab mix just got diagnosed with stage 3 lymphoma last week. She was acting funny last week so I took her to our normal vet. He thought it may have been an infection, but he aspirated her lymph nodes to send off slides. He put her on antibiotics and she bounced back the next day. She's been her usual self since then. The lab results came back late last week and I made an appointment with the oncologist for today.


We found her about 10 years ago, and has had heath issues in the past. We overcame a mast cell tumor four years ago, and she went through a lot at that time.

The oncologist is 4 hours away, and today was her first visit. I chose to go with the protocol that allows her to take oral meds at home (Lomustine + prednisone). It's not the best protocol, but it seemed to be the most mild and doesn't require weekly trips to the oncologist. We have our hands full with work and kids (plus one on the way in two months), so weekly day trips is not in the cards.

As I was about to give her the first dose tonight, I started to have second thoughts. There is no cure, so we're basically just prolonging the inevitable. The prognosis is a 60% remission rate with an expected survival duration of 6-10 months. Without treatment, we're looking at 2-3 months.

Does anyone here have any useful advice? She was on prednisone before for the mast cell treatment, and it was pretty rough on her. I don't want to put her through hell to only add a few months to her life. On the other hand, I don't want to feel guilty for not doing anything.

She was in rough shape when we found her ten years ago (living under a trailer), and she has had it pretty well with us. After the mast cell tumor ordeal, I honestly did not expect her to pull through. She surpassed everyone's expectations then, but she's older now and I don't know if we should push her again.




Thank you.

First of all, you have my heartfelt sympathy. I went through the same thing with my last Akita. She was only 7 when diagnosed. Given her young age, and the fact that I had put my heart and soul into her to train her to be a highly accomplished AKC Obedience competitor, it was a no-brainer for me to go the chemo route with her.

We did the full up, IV chemo treatment regimen. I can't speak to your regimen exactly, but dog chemo is not like people chemo. It is not designed to put the dog through hell like we would put ourselves through hell. That would never be fair to the dog as how could they understand? That said, there can be side effects. Treatment day would always leave her tired, and one med always put her off her chow for a day. She came down with some urinary tract symptoms and we had to change one of her med's. Considering how advanced her lymphoma was when we started, it was, all in all, pretty good.

She beat the odds on recurrence, going 8 full months after the first round of chemo. Since we watched her like a hawk we caught it very quick and put her back on a second round of chemo. That round was a lot easier on her because we had the recipe from the first time around, plus she was healthier going in, so side effects were much, much less.

She died of a massive CVA (stroke) a few months after the second round of chemo ended. A necropsy showed she had beaten the cancer. She was a special dog in every way, right to the very end, and for me and I hope her it was worth the extra year and a half we had together. I think we'd still have her if it had not been for the stroke. So unfair after she beat that cancer.

Thanks for the story. I appreciate it.

When we're looking at pet expenses, we try to weigh the quality of life benefits and what it means to the pet, even before we discuss costs.  In our case, we've had a few advanced-age animals (between 13 and 15 year old dogs and cats) we've lost within the last year or so.  In each case, we had to weigh the animals age and overall health versus what things might look like if we were to do things like chemo or other life-extending things.  In each case, we knew in our mind (and heart) that we'd only be postponing the inevitable and it was more for us than the animal in each case.

That said, if we were dealing with a younger animal, we might have tried the chemo route if there was a good chance the animal's quality of life was going to improve - money is pretty much no object when it comes to our pets.  We did a TPLO on one of our dogs when she was young (4 or so), when we knew there was a cheaper option to repair the leg that might hold, but most likely would not have been a good long-term fix for her.

Pets getting old really sucks, and the best thing you can do is think about how good your pet's (and your own) life has been for having found each other and spend the last 10 years together.

Right, I understand. We're also in the same no cost is too high group. I don't like to think about it, but we're probably into about $10k per lab right now.

In any event, I rolled the dice and just gave her the first round of chemo. Wish her luck!