I had to leave Gracie for about 2 hours this evening. Put her in the pen w/ her cone on, & based on her lethargic behavior figured she’d sleep while I was gone. Wrong. When I first put the cone on her yesterday she slipped it off, I tightened it & I haven’t seen her try to slip it off again. Guess she knew I was gone & she had her chance – she slipped it off. Then did some major licking. Looks awful. Just got back from the vet to have her looked at – he agrees it looks worse but in fact the underlying tissue looks to be healing nicely. He told me in order to set out all the info there’s a chance the edges of the incision contain the malignant mast cells which don’t heal. They can ulcerate. If the area doesn’t heal in a week that’s likely the cause & we’ll need to consider what to do. Chemo which would require sedation to carefully inject directly into the vein, but chemo isn’t a guarantee. Or radiation which also isn’t a guarantee. Radiation involves daily 5 days a week, for 4 weeks, & would require taking her about 3 hours away, leaving her for the week, then pick her up for the weekend. I had heard about this before we made the decision about amputation & had already decided we wouldn’t put her thru that. I’m not sure about chemo – possibly won’t want to put her thru that either. Ok, so that’s putting out the “possibilities” BUT there’s also the chance that the incision will heal fine & the flare up is just due to her licking. Since it had been looking better before today’s incident I’m thinking that’s the case. He put her back on prednisone to try to alleviate the itching. They don’t like to use prednisone too soon after surgery because it can hinder healing, but since the underlying area looks good he thinks it ok for her to be back on it. We’re scheduled to go back Friday to remove the few remaining stitches, but he said it looks like I could just take the cone off & she’ll do it herself. haha, that’s a joke folks…
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Whatever you decide to do is going to be the right decision — you have to believe this. You know all the variables, you know your pup better than anyone, and your decision will inherently be the right thing for you and your family.
That being said, MCTs are, in cancer terms, one of the “better” ones. It’s not as aggressive as most, and some dogs can live a good long time without any treatment at all. 50 percent of all MCTs require no further treatment than simply excision surgery. This was our plan with Rio’s treatment, except she ended up on the other side of the 50%. She had locally aggressive recurring tumors — we’d barely get one off and another would grow back in nearly the same place.
We tried radiation, and the tumors have not returned in that spot — that was almost 4 years ago. Granted our’s wasn’t the situation that you would be facing — our trek was simply a ferry ride and a 20 minute drive twice a week for six weeks. But it was super expensive.
When the tumors returned in a different spot, we decided it was time to try chemo. Rio handled it pretty well, although I often wonder about long term side effects. Still it was two years before the cancer came back… So, despite my second guessing and uncertainty, I think it was the right thing to do at that time.
About the licking — Rio’s sutures were healing fabulously, and then one day she started licking. Every time I turned around, she’d go after it. She’d sneak off into the other room and lick. And where her incision was healing great, all of a sudden, she had ulcerations. I just kept an eye (and ear out), and hollered at her every time she went near it, but until she got her staples out, it was a challenge. (I think they irritated her.)
Sending healing thoughts your way. Good luck, Gracie!
Rio’s Mom
It sounds like the cone and the stitches are bigger issues than being short one leg. Maybe that’s a good thing, since those are temporary?