Crow
All my recent ranting on the political situation, and on the war in Iraq, has taken a backseat, to the news that one of my dogs, a retired, racing Greyhound named Crow, might have a terrible bone cancer, osteosarcoma. This is a very bad cancer to get, because usually by the time it is discovered, it has already spread. It seems to typically come out of the blue, either with a sudden lameness, or a fracture in an other wise healthy seeming dog. No slow buildup...just one minute the dog is running around, and the next it is facing a possibility of death in 1-3 months if not treated. The dog often is fairly young also. Crow is only 8 years old, and it seems that is about the age many of these cases are discovered.
The standard treatment offered is amputation followed by chemotherapy, an expensive and emotionally difficult decision with no guarantees of how long the dog may live. After treatment, they still only give the dog about 3-6 months on average, possibly a year, although in the cancer issue[Fall 2004] of a great Greyhound magazine called, Celebrating Greyhounds in an article on osteosarcoma cases, some of those dogs lived 2, 3 and even 4 years. Of course, from what I have read in the past two weeks those cases don't seem to be that common. You really only have two other options, if you decide to forgo treatment, and those are euthanasia right away, which few would opt for unless the dog was in intractable pain, or a wait and see approach with pain management, until the pain can't be managed anymore.
As of today, still awaiting the report of the bone biopsy that was done last Fri, Dec 3. He is a wonderful dog, and is such an innocent in all of this.
