Lymphoma Diagnosis
Before I start and sorry for the long post, I want to put some background information here. Isabella was my first dog I ever adopted, I got her and her brother 12 years ago. We added to my little pack and lost our oldest, my brother’s dog in September 2025 to a blood clot and other various issues just coming together, it was quick. I didn’t expect Isabella, who was healthy at every annual vet visit (I’ve been doing blood work at their vet visits to run a background on what and where we are to kinda catch things like this) but today after about a week of acting weird was diagnosed with Medium Cell Lymphoma. I’m beyond devastated but understand that it is a terminal cancer if not put into remission.
My vet, who is absolutely wonderful, gave me my options. Obviously the CHOPS chemo is out, as much as I love her it’s not financially feasible to do that without a guarantee of remission.
My vet and I are discussing a steroid and oral chemo regiment to see if we can get this into remission. My vet believes we caught it early enough (no major masses on internal organs or that, liver is enlarged and her lymph nodes are enlarged as well). I live in Auburn near the vet school and they confirmed the diagnosis and suggested a medicine to determine if it’s B cell or T cell cancer to start.
Has anyone dealt with a situation like this? Has anyone tried this route of regiment of chemo to see if it will get into remission? I just wanted to see if anyone in my situation has gotten a positive remission with this? Or just advice in general knowing your senior dog has terminal cancer and how to keep the other two in my pack from getting depressed, especially her brother Tuk who lost his best friend Winston not even 6 months ago and now this.
I’m doing this so that possibly she can have some more time with my other dogs and my family. But if it doesn’t work, I’m not going to force it and prep for end of life procedures. What’s the best way to make her comfortable if it comes to that? I’ve never been in this situation and just am asking for some guidance.