 Yorkies and cancer
hello everyone, i was just reviewing the postings for any information on yorkies and cancer but don't see much in the way of this disease and our wonderful yorkies. I had the unfortunate news saturday, november 8th that my little man, spike, had cancer. i no longer have my boy as he was too ill to continue his very happy life with me and his sisters.
i write this so that some symptoms do not go ignored for any of you.
Saturday november 8th, we woke up as usual. Spike went outside for his usual morning routine. when he came back in with his 3 sisters (border collie, bichone, german shorthaired pointer), i gave out the breakfast biscuits. Spike didn't eat...wow i said, he always eats his biscuits, i decided to try a little cream cheese to see what might be wrong as he didn't look right and kept getting up and down off of his bed and looking at me. He didn't want cream cheese...i said something is wrong...he was perfect last nite....ate his meal, watched tv with us, played as usual...he's a chubby little man at 15 pounds....but built so he's very muscle-like.....i made an appointment at the vet that morning, he had a high fever, they gave him a shot of antibiotic and pills but said to do bloodwork to make sure there's not an issue...bloodwork said "highly anemic" - oh no...he just laid on my lap doing nothing.....the vet said this is not good having anemia so we'll do an xray to rule out internal bleeding - they called me in and there it was, a huge mass in his chest by his upper lung and probably attached to his heart....they say this is inoperable...they felt terrible...i couldn't contain myself...i just lost my other border collie last year to cancer (hemangiosarcoma). i was devastated...i took him home crying all the way and hoped his fever would get better as i made an appointment at Oradell hospital in bergen NJ as they are cancer specialists and said they will do a sonogram to see if there was anything they can do for him....by nightfall, his fever was 105.6! i rushed him to Oradell ER and they placed him in an oxygen tent...they said he's too weak to do any tests and if i take him home he will die as his breathing started to be short and quick...then his little stomach started to expand and they said they were almost positive he was bleeding into his spleen/stomach and that the end is near....at this point when a dog has cancer, there really is nothing you can do...i learned this the hard way with my border collie..she had tumors on her liver/kidney and spleen...and they told me a couple of months for her and she died 5 days later one nite in bed...just lifted her head, looked at me and stopped breathing........for spike, the vet did not tell me what i should do, they just kept asking, what do you want to do...they weren't suggesting anything like surgery or chemo or anything....they just kept saying what would you like to do again......the doctor said she never really tells folks but she said your little guy is very very sick and most likely will not live through the nite...i did the best i could and cried and cried while i held him in my arms and they gave him the shot that ended our lives together. my beautiful boy was gone but i continued to hold him for another 1/2 hour until they came in the room......i'm still crying now, i'm still devasted....i don't think i can ever recover from this huge loss in my life...my happy boy who waited for me anytime i left the house is no longer there for me to love and hug so tight....
Yorkies i guess don't normally get cancer - at least i cannot find anywhere on the web where there were any answers on yorkies and tumors/cancers. He slowed down a bit these last few months but i attributed it to maybe his age (he'd would have been 10 next month). he was coughing a bit more but he always coughed...he would cough after licking/cleaning his front paws.... he always ate and did his business so i never in a million years thought this wonderful little boy had a life threatening disease hidden away in his body.
i just wanted to share this information with other yorkie owners that if you do notice anything unusual with your yorkie, please do the bloodwork, do the x-rays in hopes that if anything horrible is lurking you have time enough to catch it and maybe fix it..don't wait for any of his/her issues to pass with time.....i had only 12 hours that day with my little man and only 2 hours of knowing i'd never see him again. my heart is broken. i hope one day in the future, the 6 month blood tests we do when they get a bit older includes a test for the possibility of cancer. thank you for listening. jenny - spike's momma |