One Dog's Cancer Journey
- The Well-Trained Dog
- 9 hours ago
- 10 min read
Cancer can be a devastating diagnosis but it doesn't always have to be.
I interview a Roanoke resident who's dog has had-and is now living-with cancer. A transcript is below the interview.
Hi, I'm Beverly with the Well-Trained Dog and Pet Care, and my guest today is Ashley Reichelmann from Roanoke. She is Jackson's owner, and Jackson is a pet-sitting client of ours. He is also a three-time cancer survivor, and we want to talk about their journey through cancer and how the Animal Cancer Care and Research Center here in Roanoke has helped them.
So, welcome, Ashley.
Thanks for having me. Yeah, well, here's Jackson. If there's his backside. Well, maybe we'll catch him later when he gets up, but yeah, no, it's a pleasure to join you and to share what the Animal Care and Cancer Research Center has meant to us. So, it opened shortly before Jackson received his first diagnosis with cancer, which was just incidentally during an anal sac expression. They noticed that it wouldn't express, and one of the doctors at the Roanoke Animal Hospital removed it. This was in 2021, the month after my daughter was born.
He had it removed, and we were told he would have six months to a year to live. We've gone back to the Cancer Center for the routine screenings every three months, and I like to say, rather than a journey, that it's been an adventure because we are here four years later. I don't even know if a three-time cancer survivor is an accurate term. We do know that Jackson is the longest-living client since the opening in terms of continued care, and that he has had the most surgeries. I think he's had eight cancer surgeries so far, and these have all been found incidentally during these routine screenings, which we are privileged enough to be able to provide for him.
He gets a scan every three months. It starts with regular blood work and a chest x-ray, and then they move to an ultrasound. Depending upon what the ultrasound shows, they may have to do a CT scan. But our experience with the Animal Care and Research Center has really been centered on not just the quality of the knowledge from the research that they provide, but just the humane and lovable care that they provide to your animal.
Jackson goes there again every three months. They're essentially his general provider at this point. He sees them more than his normal vet, and he loves to go there. He will willingly walk in. It's so confusing when he will continue to walk in, even though he's given sedation every time, but he loves the people there. They know me by name now when I call, they know Jackson, and they love Jackson, and they treat him as their own.
His resident, who started with him right after his first surgery, just finished her residency. She's Dr. Sheridan Nichols, and she sent us a beautiful email just saying how much Jackson meant to her and how she thinks about him all the time. To know that someone loves your dog as much as you do means so much because there's a lot of points in the cancer adventure where you're like, am I making the right choice? That's always been something that's weighed on us as a family.
Jackson, for anyone who's met him, has a ton of life, and we are going based on how he feels for him to let us know if now is not the time or if he can't go on this adventure in the way that we've been doing it. So he's a trooper, this dog, but he wouldn't be a trooper without the Animal Care and Cancer Research Center. Dr. Toohey has also been just instrumental as his primary surgeon. She calls at all hours, and I'm like, aren't you supposed to be home now? She’ll come out and see us when we're there to pick him up, and it feels like a second home for him.
Though I wish we didn't have to experience it, I'm grateful that we live in a space that gives us access to it.
When you first heard the cancer diagnosis, what went through your mind?
I just sobbed. Our daughter had just been born, premature during COVID, and it took us a while to have children. Jackson is our baby before babies, and he is now 12. He's lived to be a senior dog when we were told he would not, and there's something so glorious and unique about who he is. But to hear that was devastating. Of the times that we've heard the diagnosis since, I think that first one was the hardest. It was so easy to feel like maybe you have to give up hope right now, but now we've received so many, and he still is in such great shape in who he is and in his demeanor.
The word cancer is always devastating. No matter when you hear it, you always assume that the outcome is death. There's so much progress that's been made in human healthcare, but also in dog healthcare. The sticker is the unfortunate cost, and I wish everyone had access to such great care for their dog. Our dog has better healthcare than some people, and that's amazing and horrifying at the same time.
It must have been terrible because, as you mentioned, it was during COVID too, and a lot of places were closed, not accepting new patients. That must have been devastating as well. Where do I go from here?
Yeah, and I think that's been the amazing value of working with the Cancer Center. There were some times during his diagnosis where I thought, you just need to take it out. And the holistic vet we work with now, Dr. Quatmann, says there comes a point where you have to learn to live with the cancer. Well, my brain can't technically do that.
There was one point where we almost went to a hospital in Charlottesville for extra assistance because the Animal Care and Cancer Center, for all the clients they have, it's hard to fit everybody in. You have to do the more urgent diagnoses first. But they've always found a space for Jackson, and they've worked with us during COVID. We would mask, we would separate, we would do what we needed to do, but they were always there to care for him in ways that sometimes we couldn't even get our own physicians to care for us.
I think it was hard, and yet it was during COVID so we could be home with him. So there was that kind of timing that made it possible for us to be with him in those moments where it was necessary to be there.
Talk to me a little bit about—you said that he's had eight surgeries, is that correct? What else is in his treatment plan or has been part of his treatment plan over the years?
Yeah, so we've brought up the potential for radiation and chemo. Chemo has never been an option for us because we're still in childbearing years with young children. While they've advanced the options for chemo, like taking it in a pill, he wouldn't be able to do the things he loves. He wouldn't be able to come up and steal the kids’ food off the table, go swimming, or give them a kiss, and I don’t want to change that. That's part of his life and part of what makes him thrive.
We had prepped for radiation a few times but were not in need of it, which was wonderful, though when they prep you for radiation and create the pillow and draw on their body, it's a little disconcerting to see. Right now our primary option has always been surgery, and the reason is because all of the cancers were possible to do that.
He also had a liver lobectomy where he had one of his liver lobes removed, and they've been monitoring that for a few years now. It looks like they are now benign changes since then. But our primary option for the cancer is just gross removal at this point. That takes a toll on a dog's body, and again we've spoken with the surgeons. I've said to them multiple times, if this was your dog, would you do this? Because that's important to me. They've always told us that age is not a diagnosis.
They take in a number of markers, one of which is just how happy and delightful Jackson is. That indicates he still has life. So we are at the point where radiation probably would not be an option for us because I think it would too much affect his daily life. Our goal now is to keep him strong and keep him happy for wherever the adventure takes us next.
He loves to swim. I know my pet sitters swim with him, and he also has someone who does body work with him. So that's all part of his health care plan it sounds like.
Yeah, and it's been wonderful to add the holistic element for him. We've really seen him come back to life. He's better now than he was two years ago in terms of strength and health, and that's really wonderful to see. My goal was, I wanted to see my dog run in the yard with my daughter, and now four years later I've been able to see him run in the yard with my daughter and my son.
I have been able to watch him age, and while it's painful to watch a dog age, if there's a way to go I'd rather it be aging because I want to be able to be there with him and have him be with my kids. He's just been an awesome addition to our family.
And it's something the kids will remember too as they get older and grow up.
Exactly, yeah, and they do. We have these special books that he wrote to them when they turned one about how they became his best friend. They swim with him now too, and the work with the Eastern Medicine holistic vet has also helped to calm him so he's able to enjoy life outside more. He can be off leash, he can lay in the yard, he just hangs out and kind of watches the cars go by.
It's something that we weren't able to do before the cancer and before the holistic treatment because he was just so excitable.
Did he have the same kind of cancers? You mentioned anal cancer, but are they melanomas?
No, he's just had a whole bunch. Maybe a question for Dr. Tuohy to follow up with—his report is like 86 pages. I can never fully keep up. He's had a mast cell, which I know is common, and he's had a skin cancer on the back of his leg. We'd have to ask Dr. Toohey. I've just lost count. I'm amazed because I don't listen to that part of the diagnosis anymore as much as I do, do we have any options and does he seem like a viable candidate?
Right. Well, you had mentioned too, healthcare for humans is outrageously expensive nowadays. How have you been able to manage, without going into too much detail, the cost of going to this research center?
Yeah, I mean I think again we are incredibly fortunate. Our jobs make it plausible for us to stow away some extra money. When we got Jackson, when we adopted him, he was our investment in our first child, basically. So we said we were going to continue to invest for him, even though we know the life of a dog is finite, just like the life of a human.
We wouldn't stop caring for a loved one who was alive if there was an option to keep them healthy and strong. We've been able to stow away money by taking on slightly extra work and being more conscious in other spending areas. But yeah, the CT scans sometimes are about the same price as a surgery depending upon the type, and with the sedation because he's a larger dog that needs to be sedated for each one. So yeah, we haven't given it much thought really—it wasn’t would we be doing it, it was what do we need to be able to do this.
What do you tell other viewers who may encounter the cancer word when they go to the vet?
I would say, if you have access, always call for a second opinion before you do the initial surgery. We were quite lucky that Jackson's first cancer was fully intact in the anal sac. The kind of cancer he had, adenocarcinoma, returns in 80 to 90 percent of dogs—they know that. So them taking it out, it's just slowing it, slowing the gross progression of it. My suggestion is to go to the Cancer Center for a second opinion. Be prepared to wait, but tell them you're willing to be put on a waiting list.
If you can afford it, engage in the continued follow-up. That's really what's saved Jackson's life. It's not the initial surgery, it's the continued routine follow-up, because each of these additional cancers has been found only in a routine follow-up. We've been blessed enough to not see Jackson ill, ever. We've never seen him physically ill from cancer, which I am grateful for, because I think that would make this decision harder. I think that's lengthened his life in many ways because they were able to get the cancer before it had spread and caused too much disruption to his body.
I know for those people who are unfortunately at the stage where they're not discovering the cancer until it's too widespread, I think having discussions about all the options—what are financially feasible for you and what the vets would do with their own dogs—is important. Think in the dog's mindset about what gives them comfort and relief in these difficult points and discussions.
I would say treat them like a family member, but people think I'm crazy—and that's okay. I think I'm in good company here.
Thank you, Ashley. Ashley Reichelman and Jackson, who can, you know, wake up now or whatever—he's moved around a little bit. Well, good luck to you in the future and thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you. Have a good day.
***
Beverly Amsler is the owner of The Well-Trained Dog & Pet Care. She has been a professional dog trainer, dog walker, and pet sitter since 2014. Beverly is a Certified Dog Trainer through the Victoria Stilwell Academy and a Certified Professional Pet Sitter through Pet Sitters International. She is a member of the Texas Pet Sitters Association and the Association For Professional Dog Training. Before starting her business, Beverly spent more than 30 years as a journalist for newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Indiana, and Utah. Learn more about Beverly.
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