Our sweet girl Toffee was brought into our world in winter 2017 to join our family after the passing of my first Golden in fall 2017. At the age of 20 months, she excels in her training classes and has mastered many tricks that we were working towards her trick dog titles. We were also going to train her to become a therapy dog because of her loving nature. But everything changed in the summer of 2019.
Toffse’s left eye started to get watery, and her left side muzzle had swollen up. The symptoms didn’t go away even after rounds of antibiotics from the vet. Feeling something wasn’t right, we took her back to see her primary vet - Dr. Balcar. Fine needle aspirates were done on Toffee’s muzzle and at the same visit, Dr. Balcar felt something wrong in Toffee’s abdomen. He ordered an x-ray and saw a large mass. An emergency surgery was done to remove the mass on Toffee’s left ovary and she was spayed at the same time.
The mass was sent off for biopsy, and confirmed as dysgerminoma. Dysgerminomas, also known as ovarian seminomas, are rare with a reported metastatic rate of 20 to 33% (Stein 1981 JAHA) with sites of metastasis including lymph nodes, liver, kidney, omentum, pancreas and adrenal glands.
The fine needle aspirates results from Toffee’s muzzle were inconclusive, her primary vet kindly referred us to an oncologist. More samples were taken and with immunostaining, the pathologist believed the swelling on Toffee’s face is a metastatic ovarian dysgerminoma.
I am not the kind of person who will reach out and ask for help, I have always tried my best to do everything on my own. But with all the tests, her emergency surgery, her meds and upcoming treatments, the vet bills are adding up and our “emergency Toffee funds” are depleting faster than we would like.
The current treatment plan is to get Toffee IV every three weeks, and she just received her first dose on July 23rd. We still have 4 to 5 more rounds to go, not to mention at least two CBC lab works during her treatment and post treatment care. Each round of chemo costs around $800CAD, we are looking at close to $5000 if not more. We probably have enough to cover her first few rounds of chemo, but we will need your help to complete her entire treatment.
Thank you so much for reading this, even a $1 donation or just simply sharing this post will make a huge difference in Toffee’s fight against cancer!
Toffse’s left eye started to get watery, and her left side muzzle had swollen up. The symptoms didn’t go away even after rounds of antibiotics from the vet. Feeling something wasn’t right, we took her back to see her primary vet - Dr. Balcar. Fine needle aspirates were done on Toffee’s muzzle and at the same visit, Dr. Balcar felt something wrong in Toffee’s abdomen. He ordered an x-ray and saw a large mass. An emergency surgery was done to remove the mass on Toffee’s left ovary and she was spayed at the same time.
The mass was sent off for biopsy, and confirmed as dysgerminoma. Dysgerminomas, also known as ovarian seminomas, are rare with a reported metastatic rate of 20 to 33% (Stein 1981 JAHA) with sites of metastasis including lymph nodes, liver, kidney, omentum, pancreas and adrenal glands.
The fine needle aspirates results from Toffee’s muzzle were inconclusive, her primary vet kindly referred us to an oncologist. More samples were taken and with immunostaining, the pathologist believed the swelling on Toffee’s face is a metastatic ovarian dysgerminoma.
I am not the kind of person who will reach out and ask for help, I have always tried my best to do everything on my own. But with all the tests, her emergency surgery, her meds and upcoming treatments, the vet bills are adding up and our “emergency Toffee funds” are depleting faster than we would like.
The current treatment plan is to get Toffee IV every three weeks, and she just received her first dose on July 23rd. We still have 4 to 5 more rounds to go, not to mention at least two CBC lab works during her treatment and post treatment care. Each round of chemo costs around $800CAD, we are looking at close to $5000 if not more. We probably have enough to cover her first few rounds of chemo, but we will need your help to complete her entire treatment.
Thank you so much for reading this, even a $1 donation or just simply sharing this post will make a huge difference in Toffee’s fight against cancer!
Organizer
Linyan Jiang
Organizer
Surrey, BC