Chloe, C-hole, Cholochido

I was never a dog kinda girl. We always had dogs growing up, so they were just a part of my life. But they really weren't my 'thing'. A little over nine years ago, on a Saturday morning, Conal and I walked into a PetSmart where a local not for profit organization was adopting out dogs. I sat down on the ground next to this black lab/vizla mix and fell in love with her, instantly. She climbed into my lap all wirey and crazy and licked my cheek up and down. I looked at Conal and practically had to beg. Of course, he couldn't tell me no. We had to call Uncle Pete (since we were living in his pad) to see if it was okay that we bring a dog into our brood. Him being the dog lover that he was, gave us an instant approval and upon one request, we send a pic. Chloe instantly became a member of our family. She's slept more nights in our bed than our kids ever have (well, they've never slept in our bed, so that's not saying much!), she was our first child, and truthfully, she was the first real commitment in our relationship. It was a given, if we split up, there was going to be a battle. See, she stole Conal's heart even harder than mine once we got her home!

She's had a little lump growing on her front left leg for about two weeks. We thought it might be fluid on the joint (or something along those lines). Conal took her into the vet today and it was discovered that she has Canine Osteosarcoma (bone cancer). I was instantly saddened and obviously dramatic, he came home and seemed remotely optimistic. My mom was here so we really didn't 'talk' much about it until after she left. We read the handout that the vet gave us, and decided to call her. We had many questions about treatment, medication, care, etc. We were saddened by her response, as we definately didn't expect to get a Cancer diagnosis from there today.

Apparently, this is a rapid growing bone cancer that has eaten away an entire supporting bone on her leg. It has metastesized (sp?) into a round ball of cancer that surrounds the joint and that's what we're seeing. That's what she's been licking like crazy. The vet also did an xray of her chest to look for any large masses in her lungs. There were no large masses detectable, but she said that with how bad it's tackled her leg, she's pretty sure that she's got cells throughout her soft tissue as well. We could find out for sure with further testing.

They prescribed Chloe an anti-inflamatory to regulate the swelling and help with some of the pain. Treatments are amputation with chemo, radiation or euthenasia. The amputation with chemo will buy her probably about another year, but as she said, you cannot put a time on anyone or any animal's life. So she could live longer, or less, at that. She also said that she knows we have to make a decision for ourselves, but amputation would solely put a bandaid on the boo-boo, so to speak, but not 'fix' the problem. For there is such a high likelihood that there is cancer through out. It is not a curable cancer, so it will never fully go away.

I asked her how long she thought we may be looking at, 4 or 5 months? She said that she thinks that's really optimistic, she would say probably about 2 months or 3. But again, that's not for anyone to determine.

Basically, Chloe is over 13 years old and even though she is so healthy otherwise, active and young and heart, she is sick.

The vet doesn't believe she's in much pain right now. Discomfort, but she's still walking around with only a slight limp when she first gets up. She's jumping and still climbing up onto our bed and hopping off of it.

Conal and I have both shed many, many, many tears tonight. We've decided that we're going to keep her as comfortable as possible. We have a 10 day supply of meds before she would need to go back in for further testing and more blood work and another x-ray, and we will make a better decision then. We have always been of the mindset that we do not want any of our pets to suffer. We're not sure what the first 4-ish years of Chloe's life were like, so we've let her live a lifetime of riches (in a dogs world!). We don't want the final days, weeks, months, years of her life to be in pain or sorrow. We'll know when the time is right, the vet told us the first signs of real pain to look for, and recommended us not going beyond that. For now, she shall see days filled with nylabones and nights filled with down comforters!