Meet Maggie….
Maggie has been a great friend and patient of Silver Maple Veterinary Clinic for many years! For the most part, Maggie would just visit us for her routine wellness check-ups because she was a happy healthy dog. On November 10th, 2016, things changed for Maggie. After noticing her coughing for a few days, her mom and dad scheduled a visit with Dr. Sam Yoder to have her checked out. Upon examination, Dr. Yoder noticed Maggie’s Lymph nodes were swollen. This was concerning, so he scheduled Maggie for a biopsy of a lymph node the next day. This procedure is performed under anesthesia. A piece of her lymph node was extracted for histopathology. Upon completion of the biopsy, Dr. Yoder submitted the sample to Cornell Veterinary Diagnostic lab for pathological interpretation.
On November 18th, 2016 we received a histological diagnosis of large cell, high grade, B cell lymphoma. Maggie’s disease was ranked at stage II. Lymphosarcoma is one of the most common types of cancer found in dogs. Upon diagnosis, Dr. Yoder immediately researched what approach would be best in getting Maggie happy and healthy again. He decided the next course of action should be a chemotherapeutic regimen called CHOP-A. Maggie received L’spar, Vincristine, Cytoxin, Doxorubicin, and Prednisone. She underwent 19 weeks of chemotherapy. Some common side effects of this treatment are diarrhea, infection, and in rare cases heart issues from the Doxorubicin. Maggie had minimal side effects throughout her treatment, she handled it like a champ
On April 7th, 2017 Maggie was re-evaluated by Dr. Coughlin and was found to be clear of all cancer. Maggie just had her last recheck on February 14th, 2018 and is still cancer free… we would call that the BEST Valentine’s Day gift!
Today, Maggie is a happy healthy 13 year old border collie. The saying, “sick as a dog” certainly did not pertain to Maggie, cancer is not always a death sentence in dogs. We are thankful today that we can show that!
