Chemotherapy used on bulldogs: please share your experience

[kendranimal]

Our precious bulldog, Mack, has been diagnosed with lymphoma. The only real treatment option is chemotherapy, which will not even cure the disease, but will hopefully put him into remission so we can have him around for another 6-14 months. If we don't treat with him chemotherapy, he may last only 1-3 months. We are trying to decide what to do. Please share any experience you have with using chemotherapy on bulldogs. Thank you.

 

[2BullyMama10]

I have no experience, but will be sending you lots.. tons... of love and prayers hoping you find the right meds to keep him out of pain and able to enjoy he remaining time with you

 

[taytoD]

I'm so sorry for your sweet bully. I personally have no experience with chemotherapy and bulldogs but I hope you get some answers.

 

[oscarmayer]

We adopted Myra at 4 years old. Every morning Myra would meet me at the kitchen door and as I reached down to pet her she'd drop and roll over on her back. Thankfully she did this every day. One morning(she was 5 years old) I saw a badly inflamed mammary that I hadn't noticed the day before. We took her in and was told it was a mammary tumor. It was angry and weeping and needed immediate removal. Biopsy came back malignant. Not good. Options were similar to your guy although prognosis after chemo was better. We gave her 6 treatments over several months and she never showed any ill effects from it. Even at "cost", the treatments were expensive...thousands! Luckily my wife worked at the Vet office. Myra was lucky...she lived another 4 years and at 9 years old, deaf, and nearly blind we put her down. She was sweet as sugar and sorely missed. I'm very thankful that we opted for the chemo...looking back, of course.
All I can add is, if you can afford the chemo, give it a try. If it kicks the crap out of him and makes him miserable, do right by him and stop it. Let him live out his days feeling loved, feeling good, and spoil him rotten... and when he doesn't feel good anymore, find the strength to let him go.

 

[sophiebell]

Our Rosie was diagnosed with lymphoma and we went through chemo for just short of a year. We live in Georgia so we took her to the university of Georgia vet school and they have an oncology department and our vet was able to get us in. They had several "cocktails " ( that's what they called them) that were given to her. In the beginning we went once a week. I would leave her for the day and pick her up in the afternoon. Some of the medications were in a pill form and some were through an I V. It is nothing at all like what we think of as humans going through this. She was never sick during this time. It is as you said incurable and the remission time is short. She was such a little trooper throughout the entire ordeal. We had the best of the best doctors. She passed away not from the cancer but from pneumonia. She had thrown up and it went into her lungs. I would have sold my soul to the devil to keep her around for as long as possible. I loved her dearly and am crying for her as I type this. It has been 13 years since she passed away. I don't know if treatment is different now, or if it depends on the doctor but I can assure that my experience with Rosie and chemo was not as troubling as I had in my head that it was going to be. I watched her like a hawk and would call them over any little thing but that was ok and that's what the doctors wanted me to do. I wish for you for healing and peace. If I can answer any question please don't hesitate to ask.

 

[Clermont]

Sophiebell & Oscarmayer, you guys have me crying just reading your post.
There's something altogether different about our love for a faithful dog.
They are our children that don't grow up and leave the nest, they are the ones you see and makes you smile each and everyday.

OMG, I gotta go find a tissue.

 

[Momma2Bullies]

Ive posted our story in other threads, but here it is in a nutshell: Wilbur has chronic B-cell lymphocytic leukaemia. He is 6 1/2. To complicate things he also has hydrocephalus. He is on another med for the hydrocephalus but prednisone for both the cancer and the hydrocephalus, so he will always need it.

For his cancer, we are not treating with intensive radiation or IV chemotherapy. We are giving a combination of chlorambucil (the chemo drug) and prednisone, bothe of these I give at home and they are both pills. The chlorambucil has to be handled with gloves. Initially he was on high doses of both the chlorambucil and the prednisone, and that was hard to see him go through that. And it wasn't the chlorambucil, it was the prednisone side effects (thrust, urniation, super bloating, severe discomfort). Thankfully that has been tapered down to less than 5mg per day.

Specifically, the chlorambucil showed zero side effects that I could see. He will remain on one pill a day for the rest of his life, and I am fine with that. HIs leukaemia is in complete remission. We are 3 months since diagnosis. I have bloodwork done every month-6 weeks. He is doing awesome, you would never even know he is sick. I know that this won't last forever, but for right now he is doing well and is essentially himself. A greater concern are the prednisone side effects, but with the lower dose he is doing much better and his liver is doing pretty good too.

There is hope to have a pretty good quality of life... once Wilbur starts to decline, I will know it is time and that I did everything I could to keep him happy and comfortable for as long as I could.

Fingers crossed for you, and best wishes that Mack is feeling ok.