Hug Your Four-legged Family Members

Hug Your Four-legged Family Members

I hope this message finds you well.

For our family, that phrase has meant a bit more over the last 6 weeks. We have a four-legged family member, Oliver, the German Shorthaired Pointer on my Slack profile picture who was diagnosed with cancer about a month ago. We got him when he was 8 weeks old and he’s now 12 years old and is a core part of our family. In general, it hasn’t affected his energy level or general shenanigan-ness. Only when picking up the backyard was it evident that something was wrong. The vets were able to determine the size and location of the tumor and that while it’s not a curable situation, there are effective treatments that can shrink it with very few side effects. We wrestled with this because we didn’t want the treatment to be worse than the disease. Quality of life is super important. The vets assured us that 1) cancer treatment for dogs affects them differently than similar treatments for humans and 2) if the side effects were bad, we could stop the treatment immediately. So, three weeks ago we started a four-pronged response; modified diet, anti-inflammatory medication (that apparently causes this kind of tumor to shrink), chemotherapy, and radiation. The chemo and radiation is done at the same place at the same time once a week and it takes about 15 mins. If we are lucky this could extent his life by 1-2 years. He went in this week for treatment, they re-imaged his bladder and the tumor is already shrinking. They said it usually takes the full 6 weeks of treatment to start to see results, so this is good news. He is still his crazy self, no adverse effects at this point. Still barking at the daily Amazon delivery driver and taking the squeakers out of every stuffed animal he gets. He even gained a couple pounds, likely from the diet. We are enjoying every day we have with him. Please take a moment this weekend to truly enjoy your family members, regardless of the number of legs or appendages they have.