It’s been nearly 2 1/2 years since we lost our precious dog Linus to hemangiosarcoma. He was a sweet, silly, athletic Portuguese Water Dog and was just shy of his 10th birthday.
We got up one Saturday morning in April with plans to play at the park, then give him a bath in preparation for his first therapy dog visit the next day. My husband, Paul, got up before me and I heard him say, “Hey buddy, are you okay?” Linus was laying down panting in the hallway. When we went out to the family room, Linus ambled out and dropped to the ground. We called the emergency vet to let them know we were on our way.
I had to carry Linus to the car and into the veterinary hospital because he couldn’t stay on his feet. They took him back right away. After what seemed like an eternity, the veterinarian came out and said that Linus was in severe shock and appeared to be bleeding into his belly. I have a number of friends who have lost dogs to HSA, and I was terrified. I kept asking, “Do you think it’s hemangiosarcoma?” I remember thinking it was so surreal to be sitting in the vet office hoping that my dog had ingested poison, because at least there may be something to do about it.
They did an ultrasound, which found multiple masses on Linus’ spleen and liver.
The veterinarian reviewed our options: surgery to remove whatever tumors he could (but it was likely that Linus wouldn’t survive surgery); try to slow/stop the bleeding and buy some time (likely a few days); or make no attempt at treatment and let him go. I just couldn’t believe that a few hours before we were making plans for the weekend and now were contemplating how to manage Linus’ final hours or, at most, days. I desperately wanted to get him home; I didn’t want him to die in a vet office. We decided to try to control the bleeding to see if he could improve enough to make it home. The vet called a couple hours later to say that despite transfusions and medication, Linus’ clotting function was non-existent and we needed to make a decision. We raced back.
We found Linus in so much pain and distress that we decided we needed to help him depart immediately. Another situation I never imagined – please, please hurry and euthanize my wonderful dog. Linus was gone in just a few minutes. My beautiful, funny, intelligent, loving dog who always lived life to the fullest was gone.
Second-guessing, so hard
I can’t count the number of times I’ve pondered the decisions we made over the course of Linus’ life. Did this or that contribute to his cancer?
Linus had allergies that began before he was a year old. We tried everything under the sun: elimination diets, frequent baths, various medications, etc. He was on Apoquel for some time; it helped significantly with his itching. Sometime later he developed a nasty skin infection, which we treated with antibiotics and increased the Apoquel. A few months after that, I found some small black growths on the skin of his elbow. We had them biopsied, and while they weren’t harmful, the dermatologist said Linus’ immune system should have prevented them from growing; the Apoquel may have suppressed his immune system too much. We discontinued the drug; fortunately, what is now Cytopoint was newly available and we started that with success. Should we not have used the Apoquel? I have no idea. I do know that it gave him relief when nothing else seemed to help and made a drastic difference in the quality of his life.
Another event happened about 10 months before he died. He had ambled across a yellowjacket nest in the ground and a number of yellowjackets stung him. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was awful. His face puffed up like that of a prize fighter. The emergency vet treated him with antihistamines and a two-week course of steroids. Another immune suppressor – might that have opened the door to the cancer? The timing makes me think it’s possible. I’m not a fan of steroids, but for his situation, I think it was necessary to help him recover.
A month or two later he seemed not quite himself – a bit less enthusiastic about things he usually loved. Then he recovered. He had his annual physical a week or two later. Everything seemed fine. I told the vet that he had this period of a few weeks where he was a little subdued. I said, “You know I’m scared to death of hemangiosarcoma.” He said we could do an ultrasound if I wanted, but added that there wasn’t much that could be done for HSA. In the unlikely event that we had been able to detect HSA at that point, a splenectomy and chemo might have bought us just a couple more months. His last six months of life were great, and it would have been heartbreaking for us to have spent that time dealing with the discomfort of treatment that would likely accomplish little.
On the other hand, I was comforted by the fact that for most of his life we gave Linus a raw, fresh diet. I loved making his food, and he loved eating it! I hope it helped him live longer than if he had been on a different diet.
The multitude of questions continue to swirl in my head and heart. In the end I try to remind myself that we made the best decisions we could at the time with the information we had, always with the intention of providing Linus the best life possible. And most importantly, we loved that wonderful dog and enjoyed a beautiful life with him. – Joanne Osburn
Related Posts
Hemangiosarcoma in Dogs
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So sorry to hear about this devastating illness. I found this article as I was searching for CytoPoint side effects. My young dog had a horrific reaction to this vaccine which put me on a mission to seek out others who may have had bad reactions. After reading through case after case of deaths and life altering reactions, I’m of the opinion that anytime you mess with the immune system to curb it, you risk opening the doors to cancers and autoimmune diseases. I will deal with my dogs allergies and get to the root cause. Will never again expose him to immune suppressing drugs that are touted as being safe. Safe? For how long?
i feel your pain. i lost my wonderful Ginger on Mar 8, 2021 to hemangiosarcoma. Her symptoms started about Feb 19, 2021 when she didn’t want to eat, refused her dreambone chewies and drank a lot of water and threw up often. I made a vet appt and got in Feb 24. The vet wanted to keep her a couple hours to run blood tests and then he called about doing an ultrasound since some enzyme levels on her blood tests were very elevated as well as her WBC. He wanted to keep her overnite for fluids and the next day he said he needed to do surgery Feb 25 since her spleen and liver showed masses which were hemangiosarcoma. He said if he opened her up and saw cancer he wanted to euthanize her then. THe other option was to remove her spleen and send that off for biopsy. She returned home Feb 26 and i nursed her daily and tried to get fluids and some food into her along with her meds. She seemed to not have much interest in anything except laying in her crate or laying on our laps. She could barely walk or stand and i carried her outside to potty. I was able to get another urgent vet appt Mar 8 and the vet said she was jaundiced, amemic and a bit dehydrated and critically ill and she would give her some blood and fluids in IV to try to help her but the biopsy came back as sarcoma and she would live for only a few more days as this cancer was so aggressive. I agreed to the IV just to see if she would be able to function a bit so we could have a little more time with her for her sake and ours. Ninety minutes after i left her at the vet office, the vet called and said Ginger had just passed away, her heart stopped. She was so weak. I could not believe it. Ginger was a 16 lb chihuahua mix, and either 7 or 8 years old. We got her from a local shelter about 4 years ago. She had a good life with us and was happy. We miss her snuggling with us under her blanket and on our laps and her happy personality. This illness is horrible and so terrible to have our beloved furbabies get this illness so suddenly and die. My vet said this illness doesn’t show symptoms until it is progressed and then when diagnosed, the dogs only have a few days to a couple weeks to live. It is all so sad. We miss her so much and there is an emptiness around our home, Even our cat misses her. I kept wondering if i had done something wrong for her to get sick, but the vet said no, it’s just in their genes and it gets triggered. I want to find out what would cause it to be triggered and for research to be done on this horrible illness. Our pets do not deserve to get this illness and die in a bad way as they are so innocent and wanted to be our companions and love us.
❤️🐶❤️💐😪😪😪
I thought I was the only one that has had my heart torn out of my chest because of Hemangiosarcoma. I’m so sorry to all of you for having to deal with such a horrible situation. 💐🙏🏻💕💐
My 7.6 year old Chocolate Lab. was taken from me on Monday January 11/2021 at 2:00pm during our play time in the field.
She just sat down, looked at me like she didn’t want to go home because she was having fun with her ball. I walked on and hid behind a tree, which always brought her at full speed, but after 30 sec, no CJ?
I peeked around the tree and she was laying with her head down in the snow!
I went to her and tried to get her up on her feet but her back legs remained curled up! I headed off for a 10 min walk to get my truck and try to find a way into her location? Finally I made it, and loaded her for a run to the nearest Vet, but was told they were too busy, take her to mine, 15 mins away! On our way I did see her put her head on the window frame, and gave me a little bit of hope, but she went back down again 30 seconds later.
We got there and they came out with a stretcher and CJ wagged her tail when she recognized her favourite Tech! Another plus sign I thought!
The Vet said, she’s not looking well, vitals, and weakness, so she wanted to do X-rays, and bloodwork to see what’s going on? I said, ok I’ll head home to get my wallet because I rushed here and forgot it.
She said, ok, that will give her time to see what’s up with her?
While at home she called with that awful news, hemangiosarcoma, with bleeding, and euthanasia suggested for CJ.
Total shock!!!
Due to Covid, I only got to say goodbye in the parking lot, and go home to figure out what to do with all her things, without making my sadness worse!
This week has been a total nightmare, I keep walking to the field to follow our old routine, while our foot prints are still visible in the snow. 🤷🏻♂️😪😪🥵💕🐶
I hope nobody else has to feel this loss from such a horrible cancer. 🙏🏻☀️
I just came across this post. I lost my beautiful German shepherd long coat boy on 27/12/20 to this insidious disease. I was aware of Hemangiosarcoma being a GSD owner, I was aware of how horrendous it is. I missed some of the subtle clues that he may have had it. He had Intervertebral Disc Disease and it was impacting on his movement. He was continually having blood tests and vet checks, at least every 4-6 weeks to monitor his liver function, kidney function, heart function, to see how his system was coping with the high amount of nerve pain medication he was on. He also went to a natural vet to get homeopathic medication to support his immune system. Nothing showed up, he appeared to be doing well. When he was a bit slower than usual I put it down to his back pain and the panting due to the hot weather, although we do keep the house at 21 degrees for him during summer. He ate his cooked fillet steak on Christmas Day with absolute joy. Then two days later he was restless, my son said he was sleeping/lying in the main bathroom which is something he never did. That morning I thought he’s not right, he wouldn’t eat his usual breakfast, so I raced off to buy fillet steak and cook it up for him, he tried to eat it but couldn’t. So I took him to emergency vet (it was a public holiday). They asked if he’d had trauma or could have gotten into poison, I said definitely not. Then she came in a said, they can see that his stomach is filled with fluid and that his spleen felt enlarged. I beat her to say the H word. She said it could be and we need to run blood tests and CT scans. They did that and confirmed HSA of the spleen which had metastasised to his liver. They gave me two options, emergency surgery with chemo follow up with between a month to five to live before it occurred again. The night of the decision had to be made quickly and I chose to euthanise him. The vet brought him in to us, he was not doing well at all, he lay down on the blanket. The vet said I will leave you with him for ten minutes then I will come back and start the procedure. I couldn’t leave him for the whole ten minutes, he was so miserable, my son asked her to come back after five, and we lay with him and watched him go. I’m totally distraught I cannot say how much. I can also see I’m not alone. My beautiful boy was a dog model, movie star, calendar boy, tv commercial star, obedience graduate, but most importantly my absolutely best partner in this world.
I had never heard of hemangiosarcoma before yesterday when my best friend, Finn, a 3 year old Belgian Malinois, was diagnosed with advanced visceral cancer. I am still in absolute shock and completely devastated. Like Linus, Finn had a clean health check up a month before the diagnosis. Unfortunately for us both, the surgeon found tumors in the liver and spleen with adhesions to the kidneys and intestines. Finn was also already bleeding internally and they couldn’t control it. It’s surreal that i woke up with him yesterday and went to bed alone last night. The only choices were to wake him up from anesthesia and watch him bleed to death at home or euthanize him while he was still sleeping. I’ve never screamed so loud or cried so hard but I couldn’t let him suffer. At 1545 hours, on September 8, 2020 – just shy of 38 months old- my sweet, happy, funny best friend breathed his last in my arms. For what it’s worth, he also had skin allergies and was on apoquel but I don’t know if that makes any difference.
To all the other heartbroken writers who dealt with this shocking diagnosis and lost their best friend: We are going through this as I write. My heart aches to the point of breaking, I burst into tears each time I think of life without our little Versace ~ a little ShihTzu that has brought love and laughter into our lives from the moment we brought him home. He is loved by all who meet him, has a wonderful disposition and has been my constant companion every day of his 9 years. He has more ‘statement’ tee shirts than anyone I know, a large selection of winter coats, doggles and sweaters as well – a stylin’ little dog! We can relate to all your heartbreaking stories of loss ~ unfortunately we are now just at the point of knowing his time is short. He, too, was a bouncy, energetic, loving little dog – more like a person than a dog! About a month ago, he just wasn’t himself. He stared at me for a long time after we’d been playing. I read something in his eyes, just knew something wasn’t right. Called the vet, asked to have him checked out that afternoon. Due to the Covid-19, we had to hand him over to a tech and were unable to be with him for his exam. The vet called us on the phone as the tech brought Sace’ back to us, telling us to get to a hospital “right away!” Within 30 minutes, he was taken from my arms again at Tufts. We sat in the car waiting for news. He was admitted, needed an ultrasound the next day. He was then operated on, a mass on his spleen…He had a splenectomy and was given back to us in the parking lot the next day. I can’t recall crying this much for decades…the prognosis: Hemangiomasarcoma. I had never heard of this horrible, invasive cancer. He may have 2-3 weeks, we were told. There are no words. We don’t sleep, one of us is always checking on him or holding him. That was June 19th. We have him on Yunnan Bayiou, plus a more plant-based diet. We love him more – if that is even possible…3 days ago, he began coughing, his little heart is now racing most of the time…and, we know in our hearts it won’t be long, from all I have read and researched. It is most likely in his heart and other internal organs. I struggle to function but do so to give him the best of me and keep our routine of playtime, hug time… Our prayers are that he will not suffer in any way. As I write, he is staring off into space – something else he has never done. He is always beside me, nudging for attention or laying on or near me with an indescribable look of love in his eyes….I will miss that the most – and his loving companionship. My heart goes out to all of you for your losses. Please say a little prayer for our little boy…I send wishes of peace to those of you who have been on this same journey of loss and heartache and hope that your memories rest in your hearts forever – Thanks for reading. Condolences.
~ Jacqui Brooks (Versace’s loving human Mum)
I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m glad you got to spend time with ‘Sace before he passed although I know it’s cold comfort. I’ve been going through photos and videos of Finn – anything to try to get those awful memories of him at the end out of my head. I hope your pup and Finn meet and can play and romp with the others at the Rainbow Bridge. Take care and remember to be kind to yourself. At this point, it’s all any of us can do (besides cry).
Today 3.40am my best friend my boy Spirit, the happy energetic talkative beautiful boy ,also lost his life to Hemangiosarcoma within a week of his opperation to remove his spleen.
Spirit, was a 9 year old a Siberian husky always full of life like a puppy. HOW does a healthy boy, just die in our arms this morning at home.
My heart is broken in billions of pieces and what’s left is trying to find answers to justify my choices,. Is there anything at all different we could have done?
Did I make the right decisions, did I hear the Vet right or was I too emotional to take it in.
When we took Spirit in he was weak, there were hardly signs anything but a virus as there was 1 going around last week and we through he was just a little lethargic from that, increased panting, but this guy was a fluff ball and we were used to that. Gone off his food a bit, yes but huskies well this husky did ,but he always lived what you had💗
Upon our consult the vet simply told us “Spirit is a very sick boy he has a “mass” in his tummy and we need to get a ultra sound quickly”.. shocked and floored we quickly agreed and the surgery was done on the Saturday morning.
The vet called us and told us the news Saturday afternoon..
He had a mass on his spleen and it didnt look good tests .. our hearts sunk ,he didnt seem that sick at all!
Next day we went in the vet said he has “Hemangiosarcoma” and his spleen was removed but unfortunately it has spread small dots all over his liver.. Hema WHAT??… (visiting him) We picked up our boy 4 days later ,he was awful in pain plus separation anxiety, my hubby and brought him home quickly remove the (cone) off his head and my boy seemed to be alot happier again.
He ate small bits that night and was restless but we expected it will take time.
That night and next morning he was not well, pacing.. irratable couldnt settle,breathing laboured wobbly on the legs no appitite,
HOW COULD HE BE WORSE?
We took him back and there was a type of “fluid” around his tummy.. we took him back home with hopes that the anti nausea injection would help and then he may eat, get his strength up a bit and reevaluate this “fluid” the next day with the vet..
He never made it,
tears are pouring down my face as I write this, what could I have done differenlty?
He always slept beside me on his blankets, my best friend..motionless and staring into nothing extremely laboured breathing … thinking he would be happier on the bed we wanted to keep him between us but he suffered a massive heatattack that I will never forget, as we lifted him and died in a second in our arms..
Taken from us in a single moment.
This forum has helped me see that iam not the only one who is left in shock looking for answers..
And my heart is like so many of you that just didn’t expect this cruel diseases to take our babies away so viciously with no hope and no time to even think..
Just gone ,
when 2 weeks ago he was crazy running around the park happy with years and years to live being smiling at me and loving life just gone in days.
my happy boy , my everything.
This helped me so much .. Thankyou so so much for this article..
I came back to revisit my post in late Oct ‘19 & re-read earlier posts & more recent ones. I share all your pain and loss….the suddenness of this disease, almost no warning and hard decisions of letting our dogger-family go is so, so hard. My girl, Scout, a PWD passed at my friend’s house after I’d gone to the emergency vet to arrange to bring her in to ‘let her go’ and then to my house to let my wonderful neighbors know where to dig the grave under the willow tree (I’d made a call for help in digging her grave). Scout passed, on her own at my friend’s house, while I was on this mission—only gone a short while, but my friends thought she may have waited until I left to pass. When we brought her home for the final time, my friends helped transport her, my neighbors had dug her grave in the appointed spot and had a tub full of lavender, sage and rose blossoms to bury her with. She rests next to my Dal, Sadie, who rests next to my Gordon Setter, Meg, in my garden. I have a chair and little table and have tea with them often and savor great memories of times past. The hemangiosarcoma was the least warning I’d ever had—less than 24 hours!—for a dogger passing, so was especially traumatic for me. I am so glad, in retrospect, that I didn’t try for heroic measures (surgery, etc.) given the near 100% fatal prognosis of visceral hemangiosarcoma—even tho’ less than 24 hours of suffering was too, too much. Glad she chose to exit on her own, but would have spared her even that if I’d known more earlier. At least, for me, laying next to her all night, was my long goodbye to her as it became apparent that she was ready to let go of this life. I miss her Every. Single. Day.
Cisco my American Bulldog suffered this same cruel fate. After diagnosis, and research as to what extra time surgery would buy him, I made the call to a vet that would come to my home and set him free. He was so sweet those last few hours, but ready to go. surveying his yard , eyes at half lid…I laid beside him and pet my best friend. When the vet arrived, he greeted her with his typical friendly wag, but wearily. She was so compassionate…but said she could tell he was so very ready to go. He went so peacefully, on his blanket under the tree in the backyard, and god smiled upon us by giving us a beautiful spring day. I miss him so much.