06beagles
12-24-2010, 10:17 PM
Hi everyone,
I am Theresa, mom to beagles Max, Ebby and Tyler (and Desiree, Diesel, and Patience who have all passed on). I am writing regarding my baby boy Max. We brought him for an ultrasound today for intermittent vomiting over the last month or so. He has a history of colitis since age 2, controlled by diet and no other significant medical history. He had been having intermittent vomiting maybe once a week to every 10 days for the last month, seemed to sometimes occur on an empty stomach. I brought him to the vet to check his blood and have a lump aspirated last week. All bloodwork and urine came back good, no problems and the lump he has on his neck also came back as a lipoma (he has several, all aspirated to confirm they are benign lipomas).
I decided to do the ultrasound, figuring it is probably just IBD or gastritis (our other boy Tyler has IBD so I am familiar with some of the symptoms)but wanting to be sure. I was correct, they just think it is IBD/gastroenteritis but they incidentally found a tumor on his left adrenal gland. He has no symptoms of Cushings, no weight gain, polyuria/polydypsia. He has not had any episodes of fainting or anything other than this intermittent vomiting so this finding was shocking and totally unexpected.
The radiologist believes the tumor may be invading the blood vessels and feels it is most likely a malignancy. According to the ultrasound report "there is a miutilobular, poorly circumscribed mass on the left adrenal gland measuring 1.8 x 2 x 2 cm. There is a thrombus or tumoral extension into the phrenicoabdominal vessels, although it cannot be confirmed if it is penetrating the aorta. The right adrenal gland is slightly small measuring 4.5 mm". It is described as partially invasive, and an abdominal CT is recommended, ruling out adrenal carcinoma (non-functional), pheochromocytoma. We also did chest films while we were there to check for malignancy, those came back clear (yay for some good news), and he has a very slight heart murmur and a slightly enlarged left atrium although she feels these are very mild and not of much concern.
We are scheduled for the CT scan on Wednesday of next week and I am scared out of my mind and so stressed. These tumors seem to be so difficult to deal with from everything I read over the last several hours. I see some people on here have had successful adrenalectomies with their fur-kids while others have run into the complications and lost them post-op. I guess I am having such a hard time with this, well for several reasons really: Max does not seem sick, at least not sick in the way he should for having this type of tumor. Also, we have lost 3 dogs in the last 2 years to cancers...I feel like we can't catch a break no mater how diligent we are in caring for them (i.e. twice yearly checks at least, always doing routing blood screenings, checking every lump and bump). I am sure you can all relate, it's just frustrating and sad :(
Anyway, it isn't a very merry X-Mas, we cancelled our plans for today and tomorrow so we can stay home and spend time with the Max and the other 2 babies. I couldn't bear to leave him. He is our "first-born", we got him when he was 3 months old, 3 months after we got married. We always tell him he was such a sweet boy he sent us down the road to getting 5 more dogs!! It's all his fault :) He is the sweetest boy and I can't believe this is happening. I will try to keep up with posting about what is going on. I am already nervous about the anesthesia for the CT scan, I am going to read up on that now to see if there are special precautions as we don't want anything to cause complications with his BP or heart rhythm. So much research to do...Gosh this is a long post, sorry, but thank you for listening,
Sincerely,
Theresa and Max
I am Theresa, mom to beagles Max, Ebby and Tyler (and Desiree, Diesel, and Patience who have all passed on). I am writing regarding my baby boy Max. We brought him for an ultrasound today for intermittent vomiting over the last month or so. He has a history of colitis since age 2, controlled by diet and no other significant medical history. He had been having intermittent vomiting maybe once a week to every 10 days for the last month, seemed to sometimes occur on an empty stomach. I brought him to the vet to check his blood and have a lump aspirated last week. All bloodwork and urine came back good, no problems and the lump he has on his neck also came back as a lipoma (he has several, all aspirated to confirm they are benign lipomas).
I decided to do the ultrasound, figuring it is probably just IBD or gastritis (our other boy Tyler has IBD so I am familiar with some of the symptoms)but wanting to be sure. I was correct, they just think it is IBD/gastroenteritis but they incidentally found a tumor on his left adrenal gland. He has no symptoms of Cushings, no weight gain, polyuria/polydypsia. He has not had any episodes of fainting or anything other than this intermittent vomiting so this finding was shocking and totally unexpected.
The radiologist believes the tumor may be invading the blood vessels and feels it is most likely a malignancy. According to the ultrasound report "there is a miutilobular, poorly circumscribed mass on the left adrenal gland measuring 1.8 x 2 x 2 cm. There is a thrombus or tumoral extension into the phrenicoabdominal vessels, although it cannot be confirmed if it is penetrating the aorta. The right adrenal gland is slightly small measuring 4.5 mm". It is described as partially invasive, and an abdominal CT is recommended, ruling out adrenal carcinoma (non-functional), pheochromocytoma. We also did chest films while we were there to check for malignancy, those came back clear (yay for some good news), and he has a very slight heart murmur and a slightly enlarged left atrium although she feels these are very mild and not of much concern.
We are scheduled for the CT scan on Wednesday of next week and I am scared out of my mind and so stressed. These tumors seem to be so difficult to deal with from everything I read over the last several hours. I see some people on here have had successful adrenalectomies with their fur-kids while others have run into the complications and lost them post-op. I guess I am having such a hard time with this, well for several reasons really: Max does not seem sick, at least not sick in the way he should for having this type of tumor. Also, we have lost 3 dogs in the last 2 years to cancers...I feel like we can't catch a break no mater how diligent we are in caring for them (i.e. twice yearly checks at least, always doing routing blood screenings, checking every lump and bump). I am sure you can all relate, it's just frustrating and sad :(
Anyway, it isn't a very merry X-Mas, we cancelled our plans for today and tomorrow so we can stay home and spend time with the Max and the other 2 babies. I couldn't bear to leave him. He is our "first-born", we got him when he was 3 months old, 3 months after we got married. We always tell him he was such a sweet boy he sent us down the road to getting 5 more dogs!! It's all his fault :) He is the sweetest boy and I can't believe this is happening. I will try to keep up with posting about what is going on. I am already nervous about the anesthesia for the CT scan, I am going to read up on that now to see if there are special precautions as we don't want anything to cause complications with his BP or heart rhythm. So much research to do...Gosh this is a long post, sorry, but thank you for listening,
Sincerely,
Theresa and Max