By now, you’d think my dog Sam would be getting suspicious. For the past two weeks, it’s been raining extra-special treats: hot dogs, pizza, falafel, liverwurst, cheddar cheese, burgers (both the meat and meatless variety).
We’ve made several trips to the vet, where Sam has been subjected to all manner of indignities. He’s had blood tests, been sedated and strapped to an X-ray table for chest radiographs, restrained as an ultrasound probe traveled his abdomen, and poked with needles to aspirate his lymph nodes.
What Sam doesn’t know is that every other treat he swallows contains antihistamine pills, because four lumps on his skin that had me worried – two on his neck and one on his right hind leg – were diagnosed as mast cell tumors.
In plain English, that means Sam has cancer.
Where did I go wrong? I tried to eliminate stress from my pets’ lives. I kicked my designer-clothing habit in order to afford pricey organic dog food that’s free of the chemical preservative Ethoxyquin, a known carcinogen.
But cancer is a force of nature.
"If we all lived long enough, we would all develop cancer," explains Dr. Jennifer Chaitman of Manhattan’s Veterinary Internal Medicine & Allergy Specialists. "When cells replicate, which they do all the time, they go through complicated checking mechanisms to make sure they replicated properly," Chaitman adds. "And sometimes one of these mechanisms goes wrong, and one cell escapes that cannot regulate its own growth. The cell can’t stop replicating – that’s what cancer is. In a way, it’s a miracle things go right most of the time."
To help prevent cancer, neuter male pets; if a dog’s testes are removed, he can’t get testicular cancer.
Spay females before their first heat, because mammary-gland tumors are the most common type of cancer in female dogs.
Bathe your pet at least twice a month and feel for lumps.
Take dogs for regular vet exams, once yearly when they’re young and twice yearly when they’re over age 7. With early detection, you have a better chance of extending your pet’s life.
My beloved former boss, the late Liz Tilberis, wrote in her book No Time to Die that cancer makes you feel just generally awful. Sam can’t tell me how he feels – so just in case, I’m boosting his spirits with therapeutic munchies.
While waiting for the radiologist’s report and the bone-marrow analysis, I keep reminding myself that cancer doesn’t have to be fatal – at least not right away.
I’m praying that’s the sort of cancer Sam has.
