First off, let me say that our 13 year old girl Alki, a mini eskimo, completed her treatment one year ago this month, and she is doing fine. Other than a few age related complaints catching up with her, like a blue fogginess in her eyes, you would never guess her age, or that she went through an aggressive treatment for bladder cancer. I wanted to share her story so others might know more if they have to deal with the same thing.
About a year and a half ago I was rubbing Alki's tummy when I noticed some blood on the fur around her pee-pee. I took her to the vet that day and they took a urine sample, confirmed there was blood in it, and put her on a round of antibiotics. A few weeks later we went for a re-check and there was still blood, so they did another round. This spread out over the next couple months, until the vet took a sample and had it sent to a lab. They reported back they had found abnormal cells in it. The vet started talking about bladder stones, and decided we should proceed to an ultrasound. Instead of traveling to the nearest big city (we live in a rural area), she had the ultrasound truck come to her, and Alki got tested. That's when they spotted the cancer.
When she called up to give us the diagnosis, it was bleak. She said there was nothing that could be done, that it was in a bad spot near the opening of the bladder, and that it would soon close off her bladder and she would have to be put to sleep. We were devastated! I was even more devastated because when I was a kid my boxer dog had pancreatic cancer, and it was inoperable and grew until it closed off her ability to urinate, and then I had to take her to be put to sleep. I couldn't believe I was going to go through that again! I begged the vet for some hope, or another opinion. So she said 'well, if you like I could consult with an oncologist'. I didn't even know there was such a thing! Yes, of course, anything! Alki came home from the vet happy and wagging, not knowing anything was going on.
Our vet spoke to the oncologist and she put her on piroxicam, a medicine that sometimes helps reduce bladder cancer in dogs. We used that for a month and then repeated the ultrasound, and got the bad news that the cancer had not shrunk in size. Our vet referred us for continuing treatment to the oncologist. A few weeks later we got in to see her in Portland. She was very nice, and her outlook was not as bleak. She said she had treated dogs for bladder cancer with some success, usually through the most aggressive treatments possible - surgery followed by radiation treatment. So we would need to start with another ultrasound and evaluation by the surgeon to see if Alki would be a candidate for this sort of treatment. I think they did the ultrasound right then. The vet and the surgeon conferred and decided to go for it. The surgeon talked about removing all the cancer they could, de-bulking (leaving as thin a layer as possible) what they had to leave, and relocating the tubes that go to the kidneys so the cancer wouldn't close those off.
When it was time for her surgery we dropped her off and waited by the phone for word on how she was doing. They were great and called to let us know how she'd done, and then kept us apprised of her recovery. She had to stay an extra day to be sure everything was working after the surgery. Unfortunately the surgeon had discovered the cancer was worse than she expected, she had to just de-bulk most of it. She wasn't able to relocated the tubes at all. Alki had a miserable week or so recovering, and she wasn't allowed to jump on anything or even go up and down stairs, plus she lost bladder control for a while until she healed. We worked around it, and slept on the floor with her in the kitchen until she could come into the bedroom again.
A month later she was off to the second oncologist, in Beaverton, Oregon, to discuss the next step. That vet also recommended going after the cancer full tilt, and so we went with radiation treatments. She wouldn't tell us what the odds were, but when we asked if she'd had any similar cases she said there had been several, the longest one had survived five years, and none had passed away yet. The vet was 'conservatively optimistic', and we decided to go for it. It was not inexpensive, but we decided that we had been building up a good credit history for some reason all these years, it must have been this!
She received treatments five days a week, for a solid month. For each treatment we had to drive about an hour to the clinic, then when we arrived she got a shot for her heart, wait 20 minutes for that to kick in, then they knocked her out, did the treatment, woke her up, gave her a snack, and sent us home. She usually napped the hour drive back home, and by the time we got there she was back to her old self. Then we'd do it again the next day. In all that time, despite eskimo's reputations for being tempermental, she never growled or snapped at anyone, and she reluctantly but willingly walked away with the nurse every day. When she came back she was nuts barking and bouncing around wagging. The vet laughed and said she'd never had a dog quite like her, she was so eager to come back and 'tell me all about it'
It's been a year. There is no test to determine if the cancer was eliminated or not. Alki continues to take piroxicam to help keep down any remaining cancer cells, a heartburn medicine to keep the piroxicam from effecting her stomach, a medicine that helps her urinate more easily, and a cranberry supplement to help prevent urinary infections. I still watch for blood when I rub her tummy, and watch to be sure she is still urinating easily and not straining. She has never been sick a day through the whole process, and has never had a clue anything was going on, just that I was subjecting her to these strange treatments. Our new vet said to just enjoy every day she has left, because she is one lucky dog!
