CLAUDE'S STORY

This is the story of Claude, not a show dog, but the best thing to happen to me in my life so far.  It is a survival story and one I hope will bring comfort, support and hope to those currently going through this trauma or as information for those of you who may be faced with this situation in the future.

It all started in 1993, my husband and I were living in our first house in Granville NSW.  At this time I had two dogs Claude aged 7yrs and Molly aged 2yrs.  Dear old Claude had run the gambit of problems during the past 18 months, he had the cruciate of his right back leg done and he had prostate problems and got neutered.  One day I noticed that he was limping on his right back leg, even at 7yrs he was incredibly active, so I thought he just pulled a muscle as there wasn't anything out of the normal looking about his leg.  Two days after I first noticed him limping, he started not to use his leg at all when running and it was not much better when he walked.  He didn't show any real pain and knowing that he was such a stoic dog that for him not to use his leg meant it must be very sore.  My first thoughts were that he had done his cruciate again, so we took him up to our vet to check it out.

My vet had been seeing Claude since he was a baby, and as he is such a gentle giant and would let him do anything, loved seeing him and Claude loved seeing the vet and would always have a lick or two or three for him.  The vet checked over his knee and decided that there was no problem there so he started to investigate the rest of the leg.  He noticed some thickening around Claudes' ankle and when he gave it a squeeze Claude reacted and whimpered.  He said he would need to X-Ray the ankle to see what was going on, and told us that it could be a number of things such as an infection in the bone, a benign growth or osteosarcoma (bone cancer), but he thought that was a remote possibility (although I'm not sure who he was trying to convince us or himself!).

We left Claude there for the night so that our vet could X-Ray him the next day.   When I went to pick him up that night, our vet showed us the X-Rays and you could see a thickening of the bone around the ankle and a dark mass starting to move up the leg.  It still wasn't conclusive as to what was wrong, and the only sure way of determining this was to do a biopsy (taking a core sample from the ankle bone) and having that sent away to pathology.  It took nearly 5 days for the results to come back, I had to survive a whole weekend away at a show, and all I could think about was what the results would be.

On the Monday morning, I called my vet for the results.  By this time I was convinced it would be bad news (ever the pessimist).  The receptionist put me on hold while she located my vet, the surgery has one of those phones that while you're on hold you can listen to a radio station, well, the song they were playing was Mr Bojangles and it was up to the part where the "...dog up and died!!!...", to me that was a sure sign that the news was going to be bad, that and the fact that my vet was taking far too long to come to the phone when he knew how anxious I would be.

A very sombre voice came to the phone, he said before he wanted to speak to me he wanted to read up on as much information as he could on the subject so he could then pass this onto me.  The diagnosis was OSTEOSARCOMA.  I was devastated.  I knew there was no cure for this type of cancer, and all I could think of was why him and why me!  In the next breath we were asked to come and speak to our vet that night and decide what course of action we wanted to take.

Our vet was almost as upset as we were when we got to the surgery that night.  He explained that the average life expectancy with this cancer is roughly three months from amputation.  That's right AMPUTATION.  As if it wasn't hard enough coping with the diagnosis, now we had to come to grips with having his leg amputated.  My vet said there was no option on this as amputation would stop the pain he was currently experiencing and may slow the rate the cancer is spreading, this would need to be done immediately, the only problem he could foresee would be such a large dog coping with only one back leg and all that weight.  He advised us of the only post operative treatment he knew of, being chemotherapy using a drug called cysplatin.  It is very aggressive therapy and the prognosis isn't that great, may be 12 months and his quality of life may suffer as a result of the treatment.  As with humans the reaction to chemo is an individual thing, some react well others don't plus the cost of the treatment would be around $3,500.  Even though our vet knew we'd do anything we could to help Claude, he did say that this is a lot of money for something with no guarantees.  I asked my vet if, when the time came, would he come to our house to put Claude to rest, he agreed, and for the first time in seven years I saw tears in my vets eyes.

We went home that night feeling so empty.  I'd had Claude for four years before I got married, so he was really my dog, thus the decision on what course of action to take lay with me.  I laid with Claude on his bed that night, and tried to find a way of explaining to him that when he comes out of the anaesthetic tomorrow night he won't have his right back leg any more but how do you explain to anyone that that sort of surgery is for the best! (I guess I was really trying to reassure myself that I was doing the right thing, the only thing).

A few days later Claude was up and about on only three legs, the vets were amazed at how agile he was in such a short period of time.  The only thing he was having difficulty with was urinating as he use to stand on this right back leg and cock his left, but that was now not possible.  While Claude was recuperating, I was busy ringing every one and everywhere I could to try and find someone who could help him, some other treatment other than chemo that might be out there.  I spoke to the vets at Sydney University who gave me the name of a doctor who did oncology at their clinic but worked out of Prince of Wales Hospital and they also told me of a vet in Melbourne called Ian Gawler (of the Gawler institute for cancer).  Ian Gawler had been diagnosed with osteosarcoma of the leg many years ago, he also had his leg amputated and was receiving chemotherapy but this wasn't working and he was developing metastasises in his lungs (these are secondary cancers and the lungs are the most common place for this cancer to re occur).  He decided to stop the chemo and change his entire lifestyle, meditate, move out of the city and eat better.  He is now cancer free after being given only 2 weeks to live!

Although he is not treating animals any more, the people at his institute were so helpful.  They told me of his book "You Can Conquer Cancer" published by Hill of Content and that there was a diet for what he termed as small animals (meaning dogs, cats etc) which helps the animals metabolise their food rapidly and excrete any products not required more quickly.  I purchased his book and obtained all the ingredients necessary for the stew.  He also spoke of meditation, although you can't get dogs to meditate, you can lay with them in a quiet darkened room with soft music playing and just stroke them and put them at ease.  I did this, although I'm not sure if it helped him or me the most.

The doctor at Prince of Wales Hospital was the most helpful.  She told me of a vet who was doing research into osteosarcoma and was having some success, his name is Dr. Max Zuber of Gladesville Veterinary Clinic.  So I felt at this stage Claude and I had nothing to loose, and contacted him.  He explained what his research entailed and that I would have to agree to follow up any treatment given through him or through my vet and my vet would need to forward any findings onto him for his research.  He also assured me that there were no adverse side effects like there were with chemo.  The only possible changes in Claude may be a reduction of his white and red blood cell count, but this condition would only be temporary.  So the best thing that could happen is a long term remission the worst thing would be that the treatment would do nothing for him.

The treatment is as follows;

Firstly, more X-Rays are taken of the dog to ensure there are no other hot spots present (hot spots in this instance are other areas of cancer).

Next, one injection of a substance called Sumarium (a radio active isotope with a trace) is given to the dog intravenously.  The Sumarium actively seeks out multiplying cancer cells and is suppose to stop them from reproducing.  The dog is kept in hospital for five days and readings are taken of its urine output to ensure that before going home, there are no traces of radio activity still present (the radio active substance filters through the kidneys and is passed from the body through urination). 

Then each week the dog is bought back for a blood test until the white and red blood cell counts are back to normal levels.

The last thing to monitor is any re occurrence, so every three months a chest X-Ray is taken (as this is the area that the cancer would most probably re occur).

Well, after consulting with my vet (who said go for it, you've got nothing to loose) and knowing that there were no bad side effects which would affect Claude's quality of life and the fact that as the treatment was only experimental Dr. Zuber was only charging for the treatment itself ($600.00) and this we could more easily afford so we went ahead.  The treatment had to be administered two weeks post operative (after amputation).  Claude's X-Rays of the rest of his body showed no other hot spots, so the treatment commenced.

When Claude was released from the clinic, it was Xmas Eve.  His discharge papers read "....Prolonged exposure to Claude for the next 24 hours should be avoided as Claude may be still slightly radio active....".  We've kept his discharge papers, and I can remember saying to my husband that if we saw something glowing in the dark that night it was probably just Claude!

As discussed earlier, the only real side effects were the reduction in the white and red blood cell counts (temporarily), so of course, Claude had to drop to levels that were verging on dangerous (for infection or bleeding) before they returned to normal, and of course he was the first to have levels this low and for as long as he did (four weeks).  I honestly was questioning whether I'd done the right thing by Claude at this stage, as it seemed that if the cancer hasn't killed him the treatment might through his inability to fight off infection or uncontrollable bleeding.  Well, when I received the fourth blood test result I was over joyed.  Claude's levels had risen from 3,500 white blood cells up to over 7,000 which is normal and from 19,000 red blood cells to over 250,000 which is also of a normal level.  

All of this happened in 1993.  It is now coming up to Xmas 1996 and I'm very pleased to say that Claude has just celebrated his 10th birthday and he is as fit as ever.  He know only gets his chest X-Rayed once every 6 months and if its clear in February 1997, he'll only need to be X-Rayed once a year.  Now, every Xmas Claude dons his Xmas hat and takes a present to our vet to say thanks for another year, but for Claude and us every day's a bonus.

Please, don't give up hope when you hear the word cancer.  As you can see, there can be light at the end of that dark tunnel.  Remember, early detection will give your dog the best chance of fighting cancer, so don't procrastinate over any lumps or bumps you find, have them checked out, you could save your best friends life.

If any one would like to contact Dr. Max Zuber, his phone number is (02) 9817-5758 (BH).  He does do work with other cancers so give him a call.

Vale; Claude lost his fight against his cancer in June of 1997.  But we had 4 more wonderful pain free years together.  He will be forever in the hearts of those that knew him and he will be with me for ever.