Our Decision

Some little boy got his stitches out today. He is soooooo happy!

Today starts the first day of Jackson's new "treatment". We have decided to put Jackson on Prednisone which "is the preferred treatment for high-grade tumors, with or without chemotherapy. Prednisone does not cure cancer. It may help your dog go into remission, decrease cancer symptoms and improve chemotherapy drug response".  We decided against chemotherapy mainly because we don't wanna put Jackson through that and basically because it won't really help in his situation the doctor said. Most dogs tolerate chemotherapy very well but just taking him down there weekly will stress him out, he hates going to the doctor. After 4 months of chemotherapy we'd be in the same boat as we are now, waiting and praying the tumors don't return and the cancer doesn't spread.

I've spent the past 2 days doing research and it has given me way more hope than our doctor has. Jackson may of had a grade 3 tumor removed (and with clear margins I might add) but he is stage 1 and the cancer has not spread to his spleen, lungs or lymph nodes which is common for dogs who have Mast Cell Tumors (MCT). We caught his early and I have hope for him. I am not giving up on him, he's my sweet little boy.

So we'll start with a daily Prednisone, Benadryl, Pepcid "cocktail" and go from there. The Benadryl will help with any itchiness common with MCT and Pepcid will help his tummy which may get upset due to any MCT also. I will continue to research diet changes and possible supplements etc. that may help. That and lots of prayers. I just pray he stays cancer free and his happy, healthy self for many, many months. I would LOVE to have him with us at Christmas and would be ECSTATIC to be able to spend his 11th Birthday with him.

This is all so very hard but I feel this is the right decision for Jackson. Even though we aren't doing any "extreme" treatments we are still doing something. I could not live with myself if I sat back and did nothing.