So... if anyone read my photo thread from Thanksgiving (http://www.chazhound.com/forums/t108913/), you would have seen my mother's lovely standard poodle, Cleo - the dog I grew up with. She still seems to have tons of life left to her years (she "dances" and barks at the neighbors and generally seems happy, if slowing down a bit with age...). Mom noticed a while back she was hacking a lot; the vet diagnosed her with an infections of some sort and put her on cephalexin for a bit. While I was at home over Thanksgiving, she was still on the antibiotics, still coughing, and her bark sounded "off".
Mom took her back to the vet 2 days ago, they did x-rays, and he thinks she has lung cancer. Has anyone dealt with this before? My basset is seeing my vet tomorrow for her swollen face and I'm going to ask her while I'm there, but just wanted to see if anyone has personal experience. Mom's vet told her that lung cancer is usually secondary to something else, so I can only assume that at this point our option is going to be to make the most of the time she has left our family is, understandably, devastated. I'd like to think we could do chemo or something along those lines, as from what I recall working for my vet, it's not nearly as taxing to dogs as it is to humans. However, at 12 years old and not knowing what else is going on besides her lungs, I'd imagine there's not a whole lot we can do. My mom would spare no expense to keep Cleo around, but she's also not selfish enough to want her to spend her last however-long-she-has being poked and prodded I imagine you'll see a lot more photos of the old lady in the future.
Mom took her back to the vet 2 days ago, they did x-rays, and he thinks she has lung cancer. Has anyone dealt with this before? My basset is seeing my vet tomorrow for her swollen face and I'm going to ask her while I'm there, but just wanted to see if anyone has personal experience. Mom's vet told her that lung cancer is usually secondary to something else, so I can only assume that at this point our option is going to be to make the most of the time she has left our family is, understandably, devastated. I'd like to think we could do chemo or something along those lines, as from what I recall working for my vet, it's not nearly as taxing to dogs as it is to humans. However, at 12 years old and not knowing what else is going on besides her lungs, I'd imagine there's not a whole lot we can do. My mom would spare no expense to keep Cleo around, but she's also not selfish enough to want her to spend her last however-long-she-has being poked and prodded I imagine you'll see a lot more photos of the old lady in the future.