Ladyblog

A week and a half ago I took our sweet Nikki to the vet for what I thought at worst would be an abscessed tooth, but turned out to be a massive tumor growing on the back of her tongue (the blood from the tumor had stained a couple of her teeth black).  This tumor was a little over an inch in total width, and grew in less than 4 months (when her last dental was done).  Here’s a picture for all of you lovers of gross things (like me):

A week ago today we had it removed and sent off to a lab for analysis.  Our worst suspicions were confirmed when it came back as a very aggressive malignant melanoma.  While not the most common cancer in dogs, tumors in the mouth often end up being melanoma and usually very serious.  Friday the vet talked to me about our options, which included staging the cancer and potentially taking Nikki to the WSU vet school for radiation and a special gene therapy treatment.

Matt and I decided to at least stage her to give us more information, so yesterday I took her in to aspirate her lymph nodes and get a chest film done.  We’re meeting with our vet again on Thursday to talk about the results and plan next steps.

Our sweet girl will be gone in a few months if we do nothing.  This is all so very strange because she seems completely fine – her same spry, vocal self.  But we know there’s something bad brewing in her and we don’t know what the right answer is.  Matt and I are most likely against radiation, as this treatment would affect her quality of life and would require her to be under anesthesia at least three more times.  The gene therapy, however, is something we may consider if we’ve caught this cancer early enough.  It is somewhat experimental, but has shown excellent results in keeping these tumors from forming elsewhere in the body.  It also has no real side effects, so her quality of life would be maintained.

Nikki is 12, and we understand her life will come to an end someday, but she seems so happy and we’re not ready to say goodbye yet.  She’s our girl.  And we love her so.  We will know more on Thursday, but until then she’s getting extra love and table scraps until then.