Last time we checked in, Lucky had just gotten chest x-rays in December where we found out that he was 6 months met free with Palladia. Not a spot to be seen. Well, a few weeks ago Lucky started getting an occasional gagging cough. It had happened a few times before, and we figured that either he had picked up a mild infection or he was having some throat irritation due to his being intubated 3 times in the past year. We had our vet check it out as well as Dr. V, and everyone said that it seemed like an upper respiratory tract thing, since his lungs sounded fine. But we took him off palladia for a couple of weeks while we gave him some antibiotics to not overwhelm him with drugs.
Well, on Friday Lucky was due for another chest x-ray session. We were totally blindsided when we saw a HUGE met in his lungs. About softball sized. Dr. V talked to us about how this met was probably a palladia resistant group of cells that had just been biding their time and had started to expand very rapidly. Needless to say, it was a very rough weekend. We didn’t tell Lucky about it though, so he had a great weekend! He got to go to the beach at Fiesta Island, on a picnic at the park, and he got to eat pretty much anything he wanted all weekend! He’s such a happy puppy, full of energy and love.
Now for our dilemma. Of course the quality of Lucky’s life is way more valuable than quantity, and we would never want to see him suffer at all. Right now, I feel like that is definitely the case. Other than his occasional coughing, Lucky is living it up and he’s just as happy and full of energy as ever. Dr. V’s take on things was that Palladia is one of the best drugs out there, and so if Palladia isn’t working then probably nothing else will. However, with the miracle we saw in the past with his tumors decreasing in size/disappearing with Palladia, I can’t help but wonder if there’s something we can do to attack this tumor and get it to shrink/slow down. In some online research, I’ve come across Masitinib (also called Kinavet) as another recently approved drug that has shown some really promising results. I know that this drug targets a lot of the same pathways as Palladia, and I’ve seen at least one reference online that indicated it might be useful in palladia-resistent tumors. I know that I’ve seen some dogs on Tripawds that have used Masitinib, so I’m trying to look around and see what people’s experiences have been with it and if anybody knows anything more about it, particularly in relation to palladia and palladia-resisitent tumors (I know, that’s very specific information that might be hard to come across).
Anyway, we’ll be talking to Dr. V this week about the possibility, and we’ll let you all know what happens with it. We’re going to keep our fingers crossed for now.
Cancer sucks 🙁