Sophie still has no real symptoms or side effects from her bout with canine nasal chondrosarcoma in 2007. She sneezes daily and is otherwise happy.

For the past several months, however, Sophie has seemingly suffered a never-ending urinary tract infection. She goes outside at every opportunity and takes a long time. At our last visit, the vet strongly suggested an ultrasound because she suspected bladder stones.

Sadly, the results were much worse. Sophie likely has transitional cell carcinoma. It’s a nasty, aggressive cancer of the bladder or the urethra. This cancer is completely unrelated to her previous struggle– it’s just her bad luck to get two icky cancers in the space of two years.

The vet has prescribed Piroxicam, which might help slow the tumor, and Misoprostol to offset any digestive problems caused by Piroxicam.

Beyond this palliative prescription, there is no real treatment– one can try surgery or chemotherapy, but the side effects frequently outweigh any additional survival time. We are switching to home-cooked meals that are gentle on her stomach, but aren’t making any other changes in our daily routine.

We had such success with Sophie’s first cancer that it’s hard to accept that we can’t do anything about this second scourge. We have absolutely no idea how much time she has left. Right now, she’s happy and generally healthy, and we’re going to enjoy each other for as long as we can.

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