Radiation treatment

No experience here but I do wish you the very best!  Good healing vibes coming your way!

 Thanks so much for your thoughts. I was really torn about going through with these treatments or not. Since we live 2 hours away we will be leaving her for the week and I do feel bad about doing that but I just thought going back and forth every day would be a bit much.

 I don't have any experience with it either but I hope the treatments are successful. I'll keep her in my thoughts.

 Hi, there.  I just wanted to send you a quick note about radiation treatment.  We didn't do it for thyroid cancer, but our Boston Terrier, Potsie, had radiation treatment for a Grade II mast cell tumor that was removed from his groin area (highly malignant site) with dirty margins.  He had daily doses for 21 days (a month, basically, with weekends off).  He sailed right through it with no problems at all.  He had to be anesthetized daily, so the  main side effect was that he was usually still groggy when I went to pick him up each day.  About two weeks after the treatment was over, he did have some burns in the radiated area, but they weren't bad.  They actually probably looked worse than they felt because he didnt' seem to mind one bit.  He also got some mild diarrhea and lethargy about two weeks after the treatment ended and that lasted for a couple of weeks. All of this was 6 years ago and he's still here today.  He has some health challenges now, but they are unrelated to the mast cell tumor or the radiation.  Good luck.  I hope that you have the same kind of experience that Potsie and our family did. 

 Hi, Thanks so much for posting. I have a friend whose dog had a mass cell tumor removed with dirty margins. She didn't do radiation with her though, but so far so good and it has been over a year. I lost a dog to mass cell many years ago and I think it was a matter of less than a month after surgery, when I had to put him down. Because our dogs tumor was in the neck area, there may be irritation from the radiation that might giver her problems that will cause some coughing episodes and also some soreness eating. Usually it is into the second week when you might see this and also, as you said, there may be some problems with burning that you'll see a couple of weeks after treatment. We live quite a distant away, from where we have to take her, and so we are leaving her for the week and bringing her home for the weekends. We picked her up at 1 o'clock Friday and she wasn't groggy at all. So, tomorrow it is back again. She's a good dog about staying...she just trots right in with them...."Oh whatever.....as long as there will be some food for me at some point, I'll follow them anywhere" So, I'm lucky for that anyway. She hardly pays me much attention when we pick her up. I guess she is just," I know you will be here so no sense in getting so crazy about things. Where's some food?" Did you have chemo as well? They wanted to do chemo along with the radiation but I said no to that. They can still do it afterwards, if I decide to go for it. I just have reservations about the chemo. Thing is though that they found cancer cells in the veins, which means it might be metastasizing right now. There was some cancer seen at the sight of the surgery though and that is why the radiation now. Thanks again.

Not sure how I missed this -- radiation is totally dependant on *where* the tumor is.  Some places they can some places they can't.

You having this done at Cornell?  Those folks know their stuff.

But, I'd tell you if you can possibly swing it, to look into using a TCVM vet to help with side effects and to help avoid re-currence.  This was where I really got into TCVM -- simply because man, it helped Muffin the Intrepid SO MUCH.  It was incredible.

If you go to http://www.tcvm.com there is a locator on the left hand side and there really are quite a few in NY now.

Best of luck to you!!!

Yup we are having this done at Cornell. It is about a 2 hour drive one way and so we leave her there for the week and bring her home weekends. They call every evening. Just got a call about a half hour ago. Our girl is doing fine. Unfortunately they will be starting her on prednisone Monday....last experience I had with that, with a dog, we had to get him out every two hours, even through the night. They are only starting her on the pred now, as this is the time frame when some of the side effects start to happen and they don't want to wait until they are recognizable, as she may have already been dealing with them, without us realizing it. I'm not sure if time will allow me to look into one of the TCVM vets. I thank you for the suggestion though and link. There actually is one that isn't too far away from us. I'll think on it and might even mention it to Cornell, just to see what there thoughts on it are. We'll be headed out tomorrow to pick her up for the weekend. At least it is a pretty drive down there this time of the year.

DO, please do the milk thistle.  Pirate's Mom and I both get ours at Leaves and Roots cos I can buy it in bulk.  http://www.leavesandroots.com -- just go to "m" and you want the powdered milk thistle (not the whole seed) -- but trust me $12.75 for a POUND of it is cheap!!  (that equates to about 10 - 15 bottles of capsules at about $15 a bottle??).  Mine take it FINE on their food or in anything (veggies or anything you can make the powder stick with).

But particularly if you're having to do pred as well it will protect the liver and kidneys.  Liver protection is what it's best at, but in higher doses it DOES protect the kidneys. 

Unfortunately pred is pred ... and its side effects are ... yep, exactly that.  *sigh*  But if you can at least protect the body from the worst of the side effects it will help you. 

Dang -- stop somewhere and have a glass of cider for me PLEASE??????????????????????  Dang I miss good cider! *sigh* (good cider, GOOD cantalope and concord grapes *sigh*)