Our happy lively dog, Tanner, woke up at about 3:30am on Feb. 19, 2010. I heard her and found it unusual since she always slept with us and never left our room at night. I went downstairs to find he laying in a very strange position. I tried to get her to come back upstairs and she wouldn't move. I got my husband out of bed to come see her. He thought I was overreacting and took her for a walk at 3:30am because she LOVES walks. She went but was very sluggish, not like her at all. This dog could jump 4 feet in the air. We thought maybe her stomach was bothering her so we went back to bed and thought we would wait until morning to check her out.
The next morning she didn't want to eat, which wasn't totally unusual for her. She was never overly into food like most Labs. I left for work. My husband called me about an hour or so later saying she was not doing well. I told him to get her into the vet asap because something was definitely wrong. Long story short, there was a mass in her abdomen. We were sent to the Emergency Vet because it needed to be removed. Once there, they told us that the mass was on her spleen and it needed to be removed if she had a chance of living. They gave us the run down of what the chances were of the mass turning out to be cancer and that if it were cancer the chance of it already being in other organs and how long she would have to live. Through my tears, I told them to do the surgery and biopsy any organ they felt looked "infected". They made us say good bye to her on the spot just in case she didn't make it out of surgery. Knowing what I know now about a ruptured tumor on the spleen that is hemangiosarcoma, some dogs never make it out of surgery.
We left and went home to wait for the results. They called us a couple of hours later, she made it. They removed the tumor and took a biopsy of the liver.
The lab results came back a few days later, the spleen was positive for hemangiosarcoma but the liver was clean. We talked to the oncologist and decided to do chemo because she was only 8 yrs. old and as far as they could tell the cancer had not spread...yet. We did a combo of 4 adriamyacin injections (one every 3 weeks) with a oral dose of Cytoxan everyday.
A couple days after the surgery, she was back to her normal self. We also went to a holistic vet and we were told to put her on an all protien/veggie/fruit diet and some supplements. I was willing to do anything.
She had been doing great. Blood work normal, acting great, until 3 days ago.
She didn't have any energy, white gums, etc. I thought maybe she had a bad reaction to her new chemo (3 days worth of Palladia taken every other day in conjunction with the Cytoxan). It wasn't. A new ultrasound found that the cancer had returned to her abdomen, probably her intestines.
They told me there was really nothing else we could do without ruining her quality of life. They told me to stop the chemo and just do "supportive care". Needless to say, we are DEVASTATED. She was doing so well and in a matter of 24 hours couldn't even walk. We are now just waiting. Yesterday she was better than the day before. Today, she is not doing well at all. She is still alert, though. Just very tired, doesn't move much. She is not in pain. I am hoping she goes to sleep and just doesn't wake up. I never want to be without her, but I can't make the decision to put her to sleep when she still knows what is going on. I am so, so upset about this. I thought that writing her story would help. This type of cancer is nasty. Plus, it comes and goes and tricks you into thinking things are ok. She will probably pass any day now, maybe tonight. I have spent the last 3 days holding her and crying and telling her how much I love her. I am so, so lucky to have known this dog. She will be missed more than I can ever say.

Don't be scared of chemo. It does not affect dogs the same way as humans. But it is your decision. It is costly and may not work.