Hello. My name is Melissa. I have been a member of the pet forum for a while.
At times it is hard to come to this website, because it reminds me of my other little ones that I have lost in the past..
Anyway, I have a question that I wanted to ask you all. I am wondering if this statement from a lab indicates that our little one might have cancer...
To give you some background, we have a 12 year old shihtzu, in November 2008 she had surgery for bladder stones, to get them removed. They were removed. About a month later I noticed a odd growth, small at the time, about marble size. This growth was at the incision site..
In March of 2009, we took her to the vet, and he wasn't sure what it could be because of most recently opening her up to remove the bladder stones.
He did a biopsy, and sent it to the lab, the lab report is as follows"""""""""Source/History----Mass caudal ventral abdomen near abdominal incision post-op cystotomy-11/17/08 for Ca Oxalate stones.. 4 slides submitted.
Microscopic description--Not Requested..
Cytological Interpretation---Findings are suggestive of carcinoma with necrosis, slight mixed-cell inflammation and variable blood..
Comments---Primary rule out considered for this mass based on the cytologic findings observed is carcinoma of undetermined cytogenic origin. Correlation with other ancillary diagnostic data (e.g. biopsy for histopathologic evaluation, clinical staging/extent of disease, bloodwork and urinalysis, etc.) would be informative.
There was no cytologic evidence of infection on the preparations evaluated."""""""""""""""""""""""""
So this is what was done on March 2009. We have noticed since then that this growth in her lower belly has grown alot, it went from the size of a marble to a year later, to the size of 5 or 6 green grapes tape together..
What is unusual about her, before all this had happened she weighed 13.4 lbs, I had her weighed on Wednesday, and she now weighes 10.6, this is almost 12 months later.
The vet is surprised that she is still alive, she is in Kidney Failure, by recent blood work results that were done when she had a small brain stroke in early February 2010.
She still drinks water everyday, and still has some energy as she is inquisitive and barks at unknown dogs, and even at times runs alittle bit. She sleeps alot, but when she is up, she is alert, tires easily, but still not lethargic....
Her eating is another issue, she eats Gerber baby food, a few licks here and there, and we try to feed her whatever she will eat, we try to give her things that have alot of protein in it.. I should also mentioned we have 4 other small shihtzu doggies.
She eates alittle each day but not as much as she used to..
She is on Amoxiciilian 1 pill each day at 100mg for her bladder infection, and 25 mg rimadyl pain pill each day as well...
The vet thought that she would only have 5 or 6 months from March 2009, before going to the rainbow bridge, but she is still here, almost a year later. He is surprised she is still going, albeit slowly, when it comes to eating, but each day up until today, she has had spirit..
So my question is, I think that the above-mentioned lab report does say she has cancer, but I would like to ask the people here on the forum.
I am also wondering if there is any treatments that we are not thinking of that might help get rid of this growth, if it is cancer, or if it is something else...She has lost weight, just not as much as other people's dogs that are small and have cancer. Only 2.8lbs in a year...
I love her immensely and any insights that anyone can provide would be most grateful..As you can expect this has put us in a financial strain...
Melissa
