Decisons

I hate making decisions, but then again I don't think anyone likes to make decision with unknown what if.

This post relates back to Whitney Dog. If you have been keeping up with the blog you know the details, for those that haven't here is the run down.

Whitney dog goes to the vet on October 5, 2010 for golf ball size lump on her tummy. She undergoes exploratory surgery on October 15. The veterinarian calls mid-surgery to tell us the mass is much larger than expected. The veterinarian removes as much as see feels safe to remove (base ball size mass) and informs us she believes Whitney has an aggressive form of terminal cancer. Our hearts break.

 The following week the lab results come back and our veterinarian informs us that Whitney doesn't have cancer, but a life threatening infection that mimics cancer. The labs reports are sent back again for more analyzing. No additional information is really gained from this. Whitney is set up for x-rays and a referral was made to the University of Minnesota. The following Monday Whitney is seen by a specialist who believes she understands this infection. An ultra sound was done to locate the mass and the surgeons prepare for their game plan. On October 25, 2010 she underwent surgery (at the U of M).

The surgeon calls Doug mid-way through saying they need to end the procedure and this mass is cancerous and continuing with surgery would only buy less than two months of additional life and that quality of life may be altered. They believed that the original samples tested were not accurate tissues to test---this was indeed cancer we were told. Again, we are heart broken.

Seven more days go by. Our local vet calls us to discuss the lab findings from the U of M. Cancer---no present, infection yes.

What does this all mean? Both our local vet and the specialists at the U of M were both wrong twice. We were told our dog has cancer twice and both times they had been wrong.

Well, not having cancer is a positive step forward, but having a infection puts us one step back. As I mentioned earlier this infection mimics cancer and will continue to grow and be life threatening. The only treatment would be a third surgery. In our conversations with the U since the lab results came in---they are encouraging us to move forward with surgery. (This would be the third surgery in less than a month). They believe the procedure could be far less invasive than originally thought, but with any surgery there is no guarantee that they would be able to remove the entire infection and there is the possibility of having to remove a portion of her stomach and intestines and any other portion of the organs that could be affected.

We met with our local vet today to have Whitney's sutures removed. She was very apologetic of telling us Whitney had cancer when in fact she didn't. We don't blame her---after all the experts at the U of M made the same mistake. She also apologized for the fact the vet made be to blame for her infection. One of the causes of Peritinis is leaving a sponge/gauze after a spaying. Whitney was spayed There 5 years ago (though she was not the DVM that had done Whitney's spaying). We are not holding a grudge because there are a lot of other causes as well.

So what do we do? Put Whitney through another surgery? This is the topic of our conversations daily. Our veterinarian told us if she was in our position, she would be pissed after hearing both of the cancer diagnosis. She helped encouraged us to send Whitney for the second surgery, but she said if Whitney was her dog this time around she doesn't know if she would do a third surgery or not. She said she would be just as torn as we are. This procedure would not be just a walk in the park, but Whitney young and strong yet and bounces back from surgery in a matter of 1-2 days. We also discuss monitoring her mass by quarterly by ultra sounds to track it's growth. And if we find the mass rapidly growing, we would then make a decision whether to move forward with the surgery. After all, this infection could have been growing for years (but this is not likely the case). But, right now I cling on to what hope there is.

This is going to be a tough family decision.