Navigating Canine Cancer: A Caregiver's Guide

For those of you who are new to this blog, a quick little background note: My darling Emmett was diagnosed with a nerve-sheath tumor last July. It’s a soft-tissue cancer that is, thankfully, low-grade malignancy. After vets, oncologists, surgeons, and a specialist/angel/hero, Emmett had the tumor removed. We’ve been doing regular follow-ups — monthly with our vet and quarterly with the oncologist. I linked to the whole saga HERE if you’re interested in reading more.

Last week, I drove Emmett up to Indianapolis for his nine-month checkup. The tech got Emmett from our little waiting room to go do the x-rays. After 20 minutes she came back and said that Emmett was such a good boy. She said she had forgotten that Emmett actually jumps up onto the x-ray table and waits for his tests – the only dog they have who does that! I’m always so proud of my little guy…

Anyway, the GREAT news is that everything came back clear!! His legs, his lungs, his lymph nodes are all good. In fact, we don’t need to go back for the next round for six more months! All great, wonderful, exciting news!

This whole thing has been so difficult, so challenging, so exhausting. Every time he has an appointment, we get nervous, all the “what if’s” start swirling. But, man. We have been so incredibly lucky.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about dealing with canine cancer, and I’ve had the chance to chat with a woman locally who went through a lot of what we’re going through. So just throwing this out there, but if you are facing the same thing, please don’t hesitate to email me to ask any questions, gripe, vent, cry, anything. It’s tough, and we’ve been so incredibly lucky to have an amazing support system in place. And Emmett is so lucky to have so many kind, caring, supportive friends and family.

As soon as the appointment was over, we flew to Maryland for our darling nephew’s baptism and got back late last night, so I’m a little behind. But there are some great things coming: another giveaway, some fun springtime activities, a little link love later in the week, and guest posts!