Your dog has cancer. What would you do?
Update: Thank you for the thoughtful, heartfelt replies, everyone. I was surprised to see just one recommendation for treatment – proof that you can’t out-logic an emotional situation. It’s so clear to me now that I was thinking a well-planned strategy would somehow stave off some of the pain and difficulty for everyone. I think we’ve also been assuming treatment would result in a slower, more gradual decline than palliative care (prednisone), but most agree that won’t be the case. And managing that discomfort will be so hard to see and bear. I don’t want that for my beloved girl. Now we just need to decide timing – we’ll just try to monitor quality of life as closely as we can, and I’m hoping, as horrible as it sounds to say, that we know it’s time before the birth in the next month. We’ll do at-home euthanasia so she’s as comfortable as possible and so our other dog has closure, too. Thanks again. This timing sucks so much.
I know this seems a bit off topic, but bear with me!
I am eight months pregnant, have an almost three year old, and am the breadwinner. We just found out our beloved “first baby” – an almost nine-year-old dog – has stage 4/5 lymphoma, the most common cancer in dogs (and also quite aggressive).
I’m struggling to determine our best course of action. We can’t afford the gold-standard chemo treatment – it’s $12K for weekly treatments over six months. We’re considering the middle-of-the-road treatment at $5K for five treatments.
My husband, who loves our dog dearly, is concerned about the financial impact. But I’m concerned about the collective mental and emotional one. Here are my thoughts:
I’m about to have a baby in the next 4-6 weeks.
If we only do palliative care, she should live for another 3ish months.
If we do the mid-level chemo treatment, the median survival rate is 6-9 months.
We have a second male dog who’s never been without our first. I’m seriously concerned how losing her, plus stressing about a toddler AND newborn, could manifest in aggression.
The toddler may also have a hard time processing the loss, and will most certainly be upended by his sibling’s arrival.
The toddler will also be starting full-time daycare when I go back to work (June timeframe); he’s currently at three days a week.
Most of the care will fall to me because I WFH but my husband does not (and I will coincidentally will be on maternity leave).
Because I won’t be getting paid for most of my leave, we’ll have less cash flow. We could definitely ask family for some help, though, and pay them back vs. taking out a loan or opening a credit card.
There are so many transitions coming that I’m leaning toward trying to maintain status quo as much as possible. At the same time, nothing is guaranteed and the time and financial commitments can’t be ignored.
I guess I’m just feeling like I’ll be kind of a mess here for a while with a newborn, toddler and sick dog, and I’m trying to parse out the chaos in the most healthy way. What would you do if you were me?