Vegchowfun,

Your dog's tumor sounds very much like my dog's was last February. I have to say that over all my story is a success story (I say this because he was given only a couple of months to live and he is here 9 months later still) however it is not a success in the sense of a cure. He cannot be cured and unfortunately he is slowing losing his battle with the cancer.

I will tell you what I would do differently and hopefully it will help you get a cure for your dog. I would have moved much more aggressively on it. If surgery is an option and you have a vet that wants to be aggressive with the surgery, do it. We got "clean margins" but even still it came back so apparently there was still microscopic disease. Another thing I would have done is have them inject a local chemo gel at the borders after the tumor removal (carboplatin or cisplatin) while they had him open for surgery. Even if surgery was not an option I would have had the tumor injected with the chemo gel. I ended up doing IV chemo which was not too terrible on him, but unfortunately this kind of cancer is not very responsive to IV chemo since the cancer eats into the bone and there are not many blood vessels in the bone to carry the chemo to all tumor cells. This is why I recommend the local chemo that they can really get it into the bone and make sure it gets in there. Even if your dog's tumor is not in the bone yet, it most likely is there microscopically. I think the best thing is to hit it hard with everything you can at once. If you do this, perhaps you will get a cure.

We also did radiation but again, it does not have a high success rate with this kind of cancer. I would not have done the radiation looking back unless I did it right after the surgery, I waited too long in between and it was not successful. But I will tell you that if you want to consider radiation there are ways to do it that will not cause the terrible burns on the skin. My dog did not get the burns. If they get around 10 grays a week and not much more it greatly reduces their risk. Another radiation option is if you do palliative radiation. I have another dog with cancer who got that and it was cheaper, easier on my dog, required far less trips to get the treatments. If you do end up getting radiation for your dog, make sure he is on strong pain meds because they do get an internal burn that hurts and they need to be on pain meds.

If I could go back in time I would have done aggressive surgery, local chemo gel, prioxicam all at the same time. Then soon as the surgery healed I would have followed up with radiation as soon as possible. I waited too long to follow up with radiation and it is much more successful on microscopic disease than it is after the tumor has grown again. Also the chemo and radiation at the same time boost each other in the ability to get rid of the cancer.

If you have any questions I would be very willing to help you in any way I can. This has been a very long hard year for me and my baby but I have learned so much and I hope that I can help someone else possibly get a cure for their dog's Squamous Cell Carcinoma. This is not an easy cancer to treat so if you are going to go for it, my best advice is to jump all in and don't under estimate it. It is good to have positive thoughts, but don't let it get your guard down because unfortunately the horror stories are more the rule than the exception.

This piece of advice applies for much further down the road and in the event you are not successful in curing your dog of the cancer but if it comes to that you can still extend their life with pain management. Unfortunately this sort of cancer is especially painful. The pain meds alone just don't cut it. My dog's vet is great and thinks outside the box and recommended something she knew was used in horses but not in dogs. My dog's pain had gotten so bad that I thought I was going to have to let him go until she suggested this treatment. I said let's do it and it was a great decision. It gave me my dog back and it gave him his life back. He is still not cured and still on borrowed time, but he is not suffering. This will be important for you to remember in case you get to this point because it is not typical and it may not be recommended just because it might be over looked. Anyway the treatment is a local permanent nerve block that she did for him and it bought him more time.

Best of luck to you and your dog. It has been a tough road and the decisions will be hard, but if you do your research and keep gathering information you will make the best decisions possible for your dog. You both will be in my thoughts.

Jackie