Lydia went in for her monthly visit with her oncologist today. What I was expecting to be the usual oncology routine turned out to be something much different.

No more chemo!

That’s right. No more chemotherapy for Lydia!

It’s been 9 months since Lydia had a couple of very small cancerous tumors removed. Since then she’s had chemo every month and an ultrasound every other month. She’s tolerated the chemo very well, and the ultrasounds have all been clear.

They can’t find any cancer!

None!

Zero!

Zip!

Nada!

As I’ve mentioned before, the normal protocol for the chemo Lydia’s been on is four to six rounds. We went a bit longer than that, and did nine rounds. Today the vet and I talked at length about the various options…continuing…stopping…possible future scenarios, etc. Out of it all we decided to stop the chemo and continue to monitor her health. She’ll see him for monthly checkups, and every few months she’ll have an ultrasound to get a closer look. But for now, she’s flying solo!

What a relief, right?

Absolutely! Well…mostly.

When we first started the chemo I could hardly wait to be done with it. As round four came up I thought maybe we were done…then five…then six. Each time I hoped the vet would say “let’s stop,” but instead heard “we could go a little more.”  So we did.

Then something happened that I wasn’t expecting. I started to feel more comfortable with the idea of doing chemo than without it. It turned into a safety net of sorts. Believe me, I know chemo won’t stop cancer if it really wants to take over, (I lost both my parents to cancer) but because Lydia has been doing so well, I felt like we should keep going. I knew we’d come to an end at some point though and we’d have to go it without that safety net. That day is today.

No more chemo for Lydia.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m as excited as can be that we’ve passed a major hurdle in her treatment for cancer, and that she doesn’t have to go through chemo anymore. At the same time though, now that we’re done with chemo, I feel like a that safety net has been yanked out from under us.

The thing is, there’s a chance she may not even need the net! It’s hard to say whether Lydia’s doing so well because the chemo worked or just because the cancer decided to leave her alone once the tumors were removed. Obviously we’re hoping it’s the the cancer leaving her alone, and that’s what the vet suspects. He thinks she got lucky and it’s been less aggressive for her than it is for some other dogs. There are options if that turns out not to be the case, but that’s not something I’m going to spend time worrying about.

So yes, it’s definitely a relief, but at the same time, there’s a little bit of nervousness along with it. The bottom line though is that Lydia is happy dog who’s cancer free…and has been since July! And now, she’s chemo free too! So my focus is going to be the hope she does so well that the idea of our chemo safety net will fade into oblivion.

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Tagged as: canine cancer, Dogs, Pets