Sorry about your pup. Sounds like you gave him a great life right to the end.
The chemo and radiation definitely work together. The combo leaves the cancer cells without a chance to reproduce and spread, as long as it’s early.
Surviving the onslaught of system-wide and overall muscle, blood, and tissue cell destruction is the hard part, but it can and does work. But during treatment I was sure there was no way I would survive it.
If only they could target the cancer and not every inch of the whole body. I guess that is the focus of much cancer research today.
He was very happy with all the attention, being a Lab. He actually thrived from the dietary changes, the vitamins, etcetera. Coat got shinier, bright eyes. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that there is an end to this life that cannot be avoided, and it hit me hard when he died because he was doing so well and was so happy. Seemed unfair. He was quite old for a Lab, though.
I have an acquaintance who hit hard times along about 2008, and has had no medical insurance since then, finding employment was hard for him and what he did find didn’t last. He developed an uncomfortably bloated stomach fairly suddenly three weeks ago, and finally broke down and went to a doctor despite not really being able to afford it. Stage 4 cancer, fluid build up. I can’t say I agree with his decision but it was his to make and he’s at peace with it, no treatment, just diuretics and painkillers. He did get into hospice, but no shunt to relieve the fluid, they didn’t want him back and forth to the hospital and, again, no insurance. I’ve been visiting him once a week on Friday, and he’s still holding up, the hospice facility is quite nice. How much of the sunny outlook is the drugs, I can’t say, but he’s lucid, so there’s that at least. He may last a few more weeks or a few more months, no way of knowing.
He’s 57.