I hate this part of having dogs. I was brushing him a week ago and felt a tumor. It didn't look like just a nice little fatty tumor like he has in a couple other places. The vet brought me right in for a biopsy and the results came back as a malignant Spindle Cell tumor.

The location makes it more complicated - it's on the back of the lower back leg where there isn't a lot of tissue so it's harder to remove everything. He will have surgery next Friday and they'll remove the tumor and as much surrounding tissue as they can. It will be sent to the lab and if it's spread past the surrounding tissue then we have hard decisions to make. Radiation sometimes helps prolong things, amputation if it hasn't spread past the leg. But he already has arthritis in his front elbow and has to take pain pills so I'm not going to put him through that.

So we wait and do the surgery and then see if it's contained or not. Hate this stuff...

Ohhhh, man .....


The worst.


Please keep us posted, Lori.

I'm so sorry, Lori. My thoughts are with you, and I hope things go as well as they can with the surgery.

I'm so sorry to hear this, Lori. Cancer just sucks. Hoping for positive news post surgery - good for you for catching it and getting him in right away to be checked out.

The vet called a few hours ago and was able to move the surgery up to Monday, so hopefully we'll know what we're dealing with by Friday or Saturday. Thank you for the thoughts and support! I'll keep you posted.

I'm so sorry to hear this Lori. You and Kasey are in my prayers. I'm glad the surgery has been moved up; the uncertainty is so difficult to deal with.

Lori, before you do this surgery, be sure to ask what the surgery is likely to buy you in terms of time.
I do not know about this cell type. Is this sarcoma? Melanoma? If the tumor is likely to be slow growing and is not causing pain, is surgery warranted? Is there enough skin, loose skin, where the tumor will be removed so that the skin can cover the wound? Will the surgery be likely to cure the problem?
These are all hard, hard questions, hard topics, but you need to know. If 90% of dogs in this age group with this sized mass live 2 yrs post op then I guess I'd be doing surgery. If 90% of dogs in this age group die in 6 mos despite surgery, then perhaps surgery doesn't enhance lifespan or quality of life, and maybe I wouldn't operate at all.

 Quote: Betty Landercasp

Lori, before you do this surgery, be sure to ask what the surgery is likely to buy you in terms of time.
I do not know about this cell type. Is this sarcoma? Melanoma? If the tumor is likely to be slow growing and is not causing pain, is surgery warranted? Is there enough skin, loose skin, where the tumor will be removed so that the skin can cover the wound? Will the surgery be likely to cure the problem?
These are all hard, hard questions, hard topics, but you need to know. If 90% of dogs in this age group with this sized mass live 2 yrs post op then I guess I'd be doing surgery. If 90% of dogs in this age group die in 6 mos despite surgery, then perhaps surgery doesn't enhance lifespan or quality of life, and maybe I wouldn't operate at all.

Hi Betty. I talked about all this with my vet. She is very conservative and doesn't do surgery lightly - which is why I love her. She said that there are enough cases like this where removing the tumor and some surrounding tissue gets rid of the cancer, that she said she would do it on her own dog. I also did some reading online to verify what she has said and it seems to be the way to go. If we remove it and it hasn't spread, he will have years to live, especially if it doesn't reoccur - which happens about 25% of the time. If we do nothing he wouldn't have even a year.

The tumor is on the back of the leg and yes, there is loose skin to close up the wound and put in stitches. The tumor is a little smaller than a quarter in diameter so it's not huge. She said the recovery won't be especially hard, so we decided that it sounded like the best thing to do - although not cheap! It just didn't sound right to just do nothing when we could potentially save him. We will not do amputation or radiation and make him suffer if it has spread though.

Will be thinking about you guys!

I bet all will go great!

Lori,

You are not alone.