Monday, February 20, 2012

The Cone of Shame

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Couldn't believe when I saw this Seraphina page on the MyMemories software by CatDesignz, I had to get it right away this weekend for my Seraphina. Our dog Fina, her full name is Seraphina, and she's been having a rough go the last few weeks. She had some cysts removed back in early December, and one of them was confirmed as a Mast Cell Tumor, it came from her tail stub. We keep saying she's got stub cancer. She's 13 1/2. She's had this rash on her feet. It started with these little lumps, but they got bigger, more red and raw. On bad days, she'll leave bloody footprints all over the floor. With our fabulous vet, we've tried a bunch of things, we tried two different antibiotics, an antihistamine, trying different diet, she's now eating grain-free salmon fancydog food.

But it wasn't working.

So Dr. Dan hooked us up with an even more fancy Doggie Dermatologist. Who knew they even had them? Not me. But boy that guy was expensive. Expensive to walk in the door, and then, he wanted to do some testing too!
So he did a slide of a gooey footprint, and threw it under a microscope. He said he said he didn't see neutrophiles, which he would expect with an infection like this, but he saw leukocytes, which are apparently more common with tumors. He was debating between a biopsy and a needle aspiration for the next step, but when I told him how Dr. Dan had already done that, and hadn't gotten much for his cell culture, he'd to swizzle in the wound with the q-tip, which didn't seem to hurt Fina a lot, but it hurt me just to watch. Fina was calm and simply less than festive.
I was leaning more towards the biopsy. Then he told me how sometimes mast cell tumors, when cut release a lot of hystamine, so he prefers to have them on the table. They were even able to do it same day. That clenched it. So I left Fina there for a little mini-surgery, another sort of Fina spa day. They even trimmed her nails.
There were two sorts of cancers he was leaning towards, 1 the mast cell, 2, I can't remember the name of the second one, lymphocytoma maybe? That can manifest in tumorous lesions. Neither respond very well to chemo. He says we should have the results next week.
She's 13 1/2. It's time for us to theoretically start thinking how far we want to go. I'm not thinking that way.

I am thinking about the about possible cancerous tumors on her feet and their rotting putrescence. She just had the biopsy on Friday, and when she chewed through the bandage this morning while I was at the chiropractor, I had to cut the rest off. She starting bleeding all over the house, I had to run to the nearest vet buy her a Cone of Shame. She hates it. But the feet weren't as nasty when we came home. She gets a very round head, and is afraid to go up or down stairs, or through any doorway. She just has no concept of how big it is. Poor Fina is having a really bad day, but she's her ever wonderful self.

If any dog deserved her own scrappage, it is Fina.

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