[Dailydrool] lymphoma

[Tracy Pellish]

Hello all.  Seems like the only time I ever post here is when I have questions about bad stuff.  Sorry for that.  Anyways, about a week I looked at my little girlie Charlie and noticed under her cheeks seemed a little bigger than usual.  She had been acting normal and eating fine, so I thought maybe it was just my imagination.  She was due for shots anyways, so I thought I'd just mention it when I took her in.  Well, Sunday when I got home from work (late at night) her cheeks seemed worse and her face was swollen to the point that her eyes weren't open hardly at all.  Pretty much just the droopy part was open.  I did a body inspection and noticed more lumps in her arm pits and close to her chest.  I took her to the vet yesterday and she immediately said she thought it was lymphoma.  I don't think I've stopped crying since then.  I have a couple more days to wait for the test results to confirm it, but the vet is pretty certain that is what it is.  She gave me some antibiotics with the hope that it will help her eyes a little bit too.  At first she thought that it might have already spread to her lungs because of how horrible her lymph nodes were and because she also started coughing a little recently.  But she said there is only a little bit of congestion, like what you might see if she just had an infection.  But she is still leaning towards it being lymphoma.  So.  At this point chemo is an option.  I'm really hoping with all I got that that doesn't change.  She told me she will refer me to the specialist, so I haven't talked to that vet yet, but I'm confident that I will love that vet as much as I love their regular one.  Plus, my vet says she will try some "eastern medicine" along with all the "western medicine".  I was wondering though if anybody who has gone through this before can give me a little idea of what to expect.  The vet told me that the quality of life would be fair, that most of the time the dogs don't get the same reaction to the chemo that people do (like nausea, etc).  But she also told me the life expectancy is at most probably 2 years.  I know every situation is different and I can still pray for a miracle, but I'm just trying to wrap my brain around all this.  So if anybody has any good advice, websites to check out, some extra drool, anything at all, I'd really appreciate it.  Thank you.  
 
Tracy, Otis, and my favorite girl Charlie-warlie   
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