Challenges for Championships in Alaska

24 January 2012
8:15 PM

Sunrise at	10:02 AM	in direction	138°	Southeast
Sunset at	4:04 PM	in direction	222°	Southwest

Duration of day: 6 hours, 1 minute (6 minutes, 26 seconds longer than yesterday)

JayJay, my youngest doberman had a histiocytoma.  It had grown very large.  We finally found a treatment, but the treatment eats away at the tumorous mass exposing raw skin.  Then, because it was so large, we have to wait out the healing process, re-administering treatment to any area that becomes affected again. 

She is a sweet, yet sassy thing, with excellent breeding and really nice conformation.  She was entered in a show for this weekend in Anchorage.  We have looked forward to this show for some time.  We don't have many dogs shows here in Alaska and we only have two or three that have enough entries to make a major.  We are not going to the show due to JayJay's wound, and in not doing so, we dropped the possibility of it being a major for all here.

This is itself was very stressful and uncomfortable for me.  I felt responsibility for those who'd planned to attend, while at the same time felt I could not take my own bitch to show - for reasons I will describe.  Whenever I go through something like this, I usually make a mess of things - you know, something where if I'd just looked at things most honestly earlier, I wouldn't have had so many people expecting more of me.  Then when I realize it isn't going to work out, I become a little schizo about it.  I feel pressured to honor my obligations (even if there is no pressure); I feel I let people down (which is true in that it was hoped we would have a major and I could have kept that clear from the onset); I feel disappointed because it was one of our few chances at a major and we can't attend.

But most of all, I am really freaked out about my JayJay's health and what a really weird ailment this is and how very hard to heal it is.  I don't know that her going into the show with a lesion would actually harm her chances of winning, but I do think the stress of being in a show and being exposed to new environments, other dogs, etc., could encourage more damage.

I took a photo of the original histiocytoma, and then deleted it, but the following picture is a good indication of its size and shape.  Hers was closer to her foot pad, below the foreleg elbow.

Untreated histiocytoma

The histiocytoma on JayJay's foot was becoming redder than this with a depressed, oozing area in the middle of it.  We could find no way to address the ooze or redness.

After waiting forever to find the right treatment, we found that black salve, Cansema, dissolved the tumorous mass, but it leaves exposed flesh.  The process is to apply the black salve for three days in a row, then let it sit with no application for three days.  We repeated this twice, after which the lesion was bright, bright red at first, from the blood circulating in the healthy skin.  The current lesion is actually much better, with areas that are clearly healing, but you can't tell that by the photo I took today.  Also, there are two areas where I think it may be returning, but that could be due to the irritation of her licking it.

Smooth flat ares in the upper right and left with some irritation down the middle

 There are sections of the open wound which are flat and smooth, not discernible in the photo and then some slightly raised areas that are intensified by the flash.  Still, those bubbling areas are the ones that I will look at again closely tomorrow.  I need to keep her from irritating it by licking at it, which is hard since we work away from home.

The black salve is placed directly on the areas to be treated.  The Golden salve, for healing is placed sparingly on a large Band Aid.  Then we wrap stretchable gauze around that and secure it with breathable tape.  We then place a sock over the the gauze and secure it with tape.  Finally, we put a booty on the bottom portion to keep the sock from getting wet outside.

Yesterday I mentioned the creativity of our farm vets.  The regular vets only would consider two possibilities:  surgery or let it take care of itself.  They did not want to get involved in surgery because they didn't think it worked and took too long to heal.  Our farm vets were willing to give it a shot, but we still are facing a long healing time. 

The black salve hurts when we apply it.  After all, it is literally dissolving the tumorous cells.  The golden salve does not hurt, but must smell good as she seems to want to get that bandage off to eat it.  I am also giving her strong immune boosters because this skin ailment is a symptom of a compromised immune system.  We have seen symptoms of this type of weakness before.  We aren't sure what brings it on in this doberman as our other show no such susceptibility. 

So, we just try to love her, care for her, and keep her from licking it.