Watson Update

Well, we saw the specialist today and unfortunately, the news isn’t any better. Hemangiosarcoma is just a really nasty kind of cancer. The most is known about the type that originates in the spleen but even when it originates under the skin like Watson’s it has a very similar prognosis. Usually without any treatment or removal of the original site of the cancer the dog will die within 4-6 weeks. If the only treatment is to remove the cancer average survival is 4 months. With the addition of chemo-therapy, survival increases to 6 – 9 months.

We don’t know if Watson has any tumors other than the one that was removed and the pathology report was unclear as to if the entire tumor in that location was removed. The cancer cells went very close to the border so it was difficult to tell if the borders were clear or not. We could have elected to have a full work up (blood work, chest x-ray and abdominal CT for $600 - $700) but the doctor said the only reason to do that is if we had decided to do chemo therapy. Even though the chemo therapy treatment for this particular cancer is not terribly expensive (total around $2000 plus the $600 - $700 of blood work/CT & X-ray every 2 – 3 months) we have decided that Watson doesn’t need to spend his last days with any possibility of being sick from chemo especially since it will not cure the cancer.

Watson may have no symptoms at all until he collapses from internal bleeding that is the primary cause of death of dogs with this type of cancer. So, as soon as he gets his stitches out we are going to throw the ball for him as much as possible, take him swimming and generally spoil him rotten for as long as he is with us.

We are very thankful for all of you that love him (almost) as much as we do. And a special thanks to Jessie & Keith for taking care of him this weekend so we don’t have to cancel our 10th Anniversary trip.