Introduction to Cody

Well, I am new to this blogging thing so bear with me. This is my first post about my dog, Cody. Cody is a 10 year old, male neutered black labrador. I am a veterinarian. And as luck would have it Cody has a big 'ol mass in his lung.

I was informed of this bad news on June 28th in the written report I got from the radiologist that reviewed Cody's radiographs (x-rays). Ok, ok so here's how it happened.

On June 27th Cody went to work with me and I decided it was high time to x-rays his left front leg because he had been limping pretty badly on and off for a couple of weeks. I knew the kiddo had some arthritis and wanted to know just how bad things were. Well, since we were gonna take x-rays of the leg I thought... oh what the hell, let's shoot the rest of the dog too - chest, abdomen, hips, knees...the whole sha-bang.

We've got digital radiographs at our hospital, so I viewed them before sending them off to the radiologist to review. Yes, I saw the mass...what did I do? Like all good veterinarian-owners I immediately went into denial and told myself it was old dog changes...it couldn't been seen on both views....it was artifact, etc. I certainly didn't show it to my boss or co-associates. I just noted the arthritic changes (pretty bad osteophytes, but that is probably the subject of another blog) and went on my merry way ignoring my little subconscious that was screaming "your dog has a tumor!!!" But my dog is fine...just a little lame from arthritis, certainly not having trouble breathing or coughing or giving any indication that there is an alien inhabiting his lungs!!

Next day...radiology report: 6cm mass in right caudal lung lobe, obscured by diaphragm on VD view... Argh! Oh black and white reality...confirmation from a board certified specialist. So I turned to one of our nurses with tears creeping out of my eyes and asked her to retake the chest films (3-views this time) to confirm this nasty news.

We take 3-views of the chest when we are looking for metastasis (spread of cancer) or to get a more complete look at the heart, lungs and all the structures in the thorax (chest). There it was on all 3 views....might as well have been in 3-D damn it!

So now what? Well there are things to do to find out exactly what it is and I'm pondering this next step. To better image the mass we should do a CT scan (better known as a CAT scan). To get a sample (small biopsy) we can guide a needle into the mass from the outside and collect some cells from the mass. These cells are then sent to the pathologist for identification. Sometimes we get an answer, sometimes we don't. Depends where the needle happens to poke. You can miss the crucial cancer cells and get what would be considered a false negative - you get healthy cells or non-cancerous cells, but there is actually cancer cells. You just missed with your needle. So that's the chance you take.

Or you can just go to surgery if you know an excellent surgeon and get the thing out - done deal. Send in the whole lung lobe and find out exactly what it is.

Ok, that's enough for my first post. There's more and I'll keep you updated and fill in some back story along the way. I'll even try to get some pictures posted.