If you know Gizmo’s medical history, then you know that earlier this year he broke his femur and we were concerned it might be bone cancer since it broke without an external trauma force. Luckily, it wasn’t bone cancer. They don’t know why the bone broke (twice), but it was healing and he’d been doing really well. We did a final set of post-op x-rays on May 29, 2024. When the surgeon called, they had good news and bad news. The good news: the bone had fully healed! The bad news: his lymph nodes looked really big on the x-rays. They wanted to take a sample and test them, so we did. At this point I was just focusing on the good news. Waiting to find out if his bone would heal, or if bone cancer would appear for a couple of months had been emotionally draining. It was nice to know we were in the clear for a little while at least with his orthopedic issues.
Two days later the results were in: it was lymphoma. We scheduled the next available oncology consult. When we thought he might have bone cancer and were faced with the possibility that we might have to put him down I cried and cried. This time when it was a confirmed cancer diagnosis, I was calm. I don’t know if it’s because we had just come off of that previous situation and I’d already mourned so much, or if it was because I didn’t really know what the diagnosis meant at that point in time. With his leg, I knew that if the bone didn’t heal in a few weeks we were going to be saying goodbye. I didn’t really know what the future looked like with lymphoma; it was just a word to me in that moment, just the next thing in a long line of things that we had to tackle for him. I also know that many Bernese Mountain Dogs die of cancer, and Gizmo had already made it to the breed’s average life expectancy despite the odds against him in his medical history. It seemed to be just a fact of life we’d have to deal with at some point.
As I sat there with my thoughts realizing how little I knew about what we were about to face, I started researching online. Then the tears came. If we did nothing, we’d be saying goodbye in about 4-6 weeks. I wasn’t ready for that. But was I really going to put him through chemo to try and extend his life? What kind of life would that be? I knew I would have to decide as soon as we were in that consult and I didn’t know how to make this decision. Which is the lesser of two evils? I read lots of facts about canine lymphoma. I learned there were different types with different prognoses: one you might get another 6 months max, and the other possibly up to 14 months with treatment. I learned that dogs generally do better with chemo than humans do, with GI side effects being the most common issue. I read a lot that was so… factual. I was searching for something that would help me make a decision about whether to try putting Gizmo through chemo at the risk of having poor quality of life for his final days vs. letting him go while I know he is still happy when it might be giving up too soon. I grew frustrated and more upset as I kept reading more web pages that just kept telling me the same facts I’d already read. Why couldn’t anyone talk about how I was going to make this decision for MY dog? Eventually I found Kaya’s Blog and I read the whole thing start to end. Finally, a human talking about the ups and downs of going through this that gave me a sense of what I might expect. It was just one example and I knew ours may not be the same, but it was all I needed to feel consoled and be able to think again. I told Colin that I thought we should go into the consult with the intent to start chemo. If it makes him really sick and unhappy, then we can stop. He agreed.
We loaded Gizmo up in his cart and took a family walk to the park and just sat there for over an hour cuddling with him. He was happy.