In early May we discovered a concerning mass in the back of Sabo’s throat. He was given steroids and had a CT done to see if we could determine the cause, only to find that the steroids had completely gotten rid of the mass.

At the time we’d also done bloodwork and there were a few concerning values, so our vet wanted to recheck that again once he was fully weaned off of the steroids. Unfortunately not much had changed when we ran it the second time around, so we started to worry, as we couldn’t figure out what was going on with our boy.

Based on the results of Sabo’s bloodwork we decided to run an ionized calcium test, as well as a PTH test to check the levels of his calcium and parathyroid hormone. Whilst waiting for these results to come back we’d also discovered that his lymph nodes had become enlarged, and decided to do a fine needle aspirate of three of them to send off for a cytology.

Waiting for the results felt like a century, and unfortunately the news we got was exactly what we’d feared. Sabo has lymphoma.

He’s just over a month shy of 6 years old, and has so much life left in him. He’s definitely had bad days since this all started, but we have since put him on steroids again to keep him comfortable.

Due to him being young and healthy, his vet feels that he would be a good candidate for chemo. We are currently working on getting in for a consult at the clinic that did his CT, as they also offer chemo, so that we can determine what the best treatment plan for him would be.

I can’t even begin to explain the emotions I’ve gone through in the past 24 hours. When discussing his diagnosis with our vet, I asked her what options we had and what she felt his prognosis would be. Dogs with lymphoma typically respond well to chemo, so if we choose to go that route we could get up to a year with him. Our other option is keeping him on steroids and riding this out with him, but that would only get us up to three months.

I hate that we have to make this decision. Sabo is my heart dog, and knowing that I’ll be losing him so young is absolutely devastating to me. He’s impacted so many peoples lives, and I would give anything to make this all just go away. I’m doing my best to stay strong for him, and to cherish the time that I have left, but it’s so hard knowing that my time with him is limited…and that he could begin to decline at any moment.

We got a rough estimate for his chemo treatment if that’s the route we decide to take. That is what the goal will be set at for now, and I will adjust it accordingly.

Any funds left after his treatment will be donated to an organization dedicated to researching cancer in dogs.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, we’ve got a long road ahead of us