Sasuke’s Journey so far…

A Glimmer of Hope, Then Heartbreak: Sasuke’s Brave Battle with Lymphoma

Every wag of his tail, every joyful bark, every nuzzle against my hand – these are the cherished memories that now bring both comfort and profound sorrow as I face the heartbreaking reality of Sasuke’s relentless battle with lymphoma. Just days ago, life was beautifully normal. On Tuesday, Sasuke, my energetic husky, was his usual chipper self, playing and running with boundless energy at the park. Little did I know, our world was about to be irrevocably changed.

The Sudden Shift: A Father’s Intuition

Wednesday morning brought the first alarming signs. Every day, Sasuke wakes me by turning on the bedroom lights, signaling it’s time for his dental chew and a trip to the park. But on this Wednesday, the lights stayed off. I woke late, an immediate red flag. Heading downstairs, I offered his dental chew – and he refused it. This was profoundly out of character for my boy, and I knew in my gut something was terribly wrong. I called our vet immediately, explaining his unusual behavior and lack of interest in his beloved treat. They could squeeze us in the next day. The rest of Wednesday was agonizing. Sasuke wanted nothing to do with food, not even high-praise treats like ham, and he wouldn’t touch his bedtime cookie. My anxiety mounted with every passing hour.

A Cascade of Alarms: The Vet Visits Begin

Thursday morning dawned with the same unsettling quiet. No lights, no dental chew, and no excited perk-up at the mention of “park.” At our vet appointment, things took a hard turn. Routine blood work revealed elevated liver enzymes. While the vet initially hoped it was a reaction to his monthly dewormer, they recommended an ultrasound the following day to be safe. Sasuke was sent home with anti-nausea medication and an appetite stimulant, and we clung to the hope of a quick recovery. After all, he had been perfectly fine just two days prior.

But I was terribly wrong. Sasuke declined with shocking speed. He became lethargic, refusing all food. He would only get up to drink water, then immediately pee, pant, and collapse back into a restless sleep. If you are truly kindred with your dog, you understand. You see it in their eyes, you feel it in their energy – you just know. And I knew. I rushed him to the emergency vet, terrified he wouldn’t make it to his ultrasound in the morning.

A Difficult Night and a Devastating Diagnosis

The ER vet triaged us immediately, but then presented a bill and explained it would be 6-10 hours before a doctor could see him; he wasn’t considered life-threatening. To me, he absolutely was. But I was helpless. Knowing a doctor wouldn’t see him before his scheduled ultrasound, I brought him home. I took off my shirt, laid him on my tummy, turned on the fan for comfort, and stayed up all night holding him, offering what little solace I could.

The World Stops: “We Found Something”

The next morning, Friday, we were back at the vet for the ultrasound – a day and a moment I will never forget. I sat in the exam room while the doctors performed the scan. Then, Dr. Shirley walked in, her voice urgent: “Chris, you need to come here right now. We found something.” She pulled me to the ultrasound screen, pointing to a large mass in his intestines. Her words echoed, “In my opinion, this looks very severe. I need to pull some slides to verify, but I believe it’s cancer.”

My world stopped. It was like something out of a movie. Sasuke isn’t just a dog to me. Four years ago, I had just left an abusive relationship, piecing my life back together from rock bottom. Then, in the middle of a highway in Tacoma, I saw a little fluffball. I stopped traffic, scooped him up, and from that moment, we were Bonnie and Clyde. After a month of searching for his owners to no avail, he was mine. We’ve done everything together, always. He’s always by my side when I work from home, he’s in the car for every ride, he watches me eat, and he sleeps right on my head in our giant bed. When the doctor said “cancer,” the world truly stopped, and I fainted. I remember looking up at the ceiling, everything slow and foggy, voices like distant echoes. Every memory we shared flashed before my eyes, and I began to sob uncontrollably.

A Flicker of Hope, Then Crushing Reality

The doctor told me it would take about ten minutes to check the slides and confirm the diagnosis. I walked back to the exam room, and those ten minutes stretched into an eternity. I cried, I screamed, I begged God not to do this to my perfect little angel. He didn’t deserve this.

When the doctor returned, her words offered a glimmer of hope: “From what I can tell on the slides, it’s not cancer. But we need to get him immediately to another vet about 40 minutes away to have the mass removed and his intestines put back together.” A surgery, with a much better outcome than cancer – a fragile hope indeed.

I immediately drove Sasuke to the other vet, checked him in, and waited for the surgeon to discuss the procedure. But the news I received was far worse than anything I had already endured. Sasuke would not be getting surgery. He didn’t have one mass, but two. They weren’t obstructing his intestines, so his not eating wasn’t due to a blockage. In the surgeon’s professional opinion, based on what he could see, it was likely abdominal, intestinal, and liver lymphoma. We were back to cancer, and now in three spots.

If I thought the ten minutes at the previous vet were the longest of my life, I was utterly wrong. The next hour waiting for the results of this second ultrasound felt like an eternity. When the doctor finally came in, I could see the truth on his face. He confirmed it: Sasuke had lymphoma, a rare version affecting his abdomen and GI tract. Surgery wouldn’t help, and the prognosis was grim.

Facing the Unimaginable: A Choice to Make

Lymphoma in dogs cannot be cured. It can be put into remission, but the average lifespan is only 4-6 months after diagnosis. Even during remission, where dogs often appear completely normal, it’s a ticking time bomb – one day playing at the park, the next day not eating, just as it happened before. Subsequent chemo plans offer shorter and shorter remissions.

I was faced with an impossible choice. The doctor looked at me and presented two options: exploring euthanasia, or stabilizing him…

The Unimaginable Choice: A Glimmer of Hope

…option two was to get him stable and onboard with oncology first thing Monday morning. My mind reeled at the bombardment of tests oncology would need; I hadn’t slept fully in days and had cried my eyes out. Was it GI lymphoma? Was it in his liver? Had we caught it in time? Was it B-cell or T-cell? What protocols would we use? These were terms I never even knew existed, all swirling as Sasuke’s eyes still perked up every time he heard my voice. Besides not eating and lethargy, he was still holding his head and tail high.

The choice hung heavy in the air: euthanasia or giving him a chance. I had to sit and think so hard. My little angel, the dog put on this earth to care for me, not the other way around. I couldn’t be selfish and hang onto him for my sake. It was only worth pursuing care if it promised an enjoyable, high quality of life for him.

Then the statistics began. Twenty percent of dogs with lymphoma don’t make it through the first week. Eighty percent of dogs treated with chemo reach remission, but unlike humans, remission always, without fail, regresses, and the cancer returns more aggressively and more resistant. The average lifespan if chemo is successful is 4-6 months. But then there are the rare cases, the dogs who achieve full remission and live 1, 2, or even 3 more years. Most dogs that respond to chemo see amazing results within their first week, returning to normal until they aren’t. Then you can try a different protocol, usually with half the response time. If it’s B-cell lymphoma, a transfusion could potentially extend remission. If it’s T-cell, a T-cell transfusion might be possible if full remission is achieved. My mind raced with so many puzzle pieces, so many statistics, all while being told to make the decision to try or choose euthanasia.

A Warrior’s Gaze: “You and I Got This, Papa”

The thought took a minute, but I truly believed that if there was a chance for him to make it through the weekend in the ICU, get into oncology, react positively to chemo, and have a few more months of completely amazing quality of life, this little angel deserved it. And if, by some miracle, we achieved long-term remission of a year or more, it didn’t matter what it took, as long as I knew that’s what he wanted. I held him in my arms, looked into his eyes, and I tell you, he and I have a bond I’ll never fully understand. I’ve had a dog pass from old age who looked me in the eyes and let me know he was ready. Sasuke didn’t have that look. He had the eyes of a little warrior, a brightness and energy that said, “You and I got this, Papa.”

So, I said, “Let’s do it.” Let’s get him stable. It was Thursday, and we needed to make it until Monday. 24/7 care, fluids, tests, nutrients – let’s get him stable and to oncology.

Then reality set in. We got him all checked in. He went back to lay in his little run with his private nurse, and I walked to the front desk to get my first bill: $5,579. That was the initial deposit to stabilize him, monitor him through the weekend, and begin the tests oncology would require. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. In my mind, I vowed, “If I have to live in a cardboard box, if it means happiness for him, I’m doing it.”

The Agonizing Weekend: A Mother’s Hope and Doubt

The next 72 hours were a blur. I cried, I begged, I cried some more. I called hourly to see if he was getting an appetite, if there were any changes. Were we progressing at all? Because if he was suffering in any way, this was not the path I wanted to take. The control over the spark of something’s life in the decision you make is something I wish upon no one.

One doctor flat out told me, “You’re making the wrong decision.” Another told me that I had noticed the signs so quickly that this was nothing compared to some of the other cancer dogs they had kept stable. And then there was an amazing vet tech who called me after hours, off the clock, to tell me she couldn’t say anything while at work, but she had worked for years in oncology and had seen many dogs live amazing lives for 4, 6, even 12 months whose owners had made that call. She truly believed I had made the right one.

I thought back to my rescue dog, Appa, who was diagnosed with parvo, the silent dog killer, the day I brought him home from an abusive situation. Every doctor said to put him down. Parvo was expensive, most dogs didn’t survive, it was grueling and hard to watch, and the only prescription for it was hope. The dog had to want to live. I sat with Appa for 72 sleepless hours at home, giving IV fluids, singing to him, watching movies, and he pulled through. And while I know there’s no cure for lymphoma, a four-year-old husky getting lymphoma, and a rare form at that, is just as rare as achieving long-term remission.

A Glimmer of Progress: The McDonald’s Burger

Through the weekend, we saw Sasuke’s levels start to increase. We saw his liver was not affected, the masses were not blocking, and the aggression of the lymphoma seemed to relax once he was getting IV fluids and nutrients. But the big concern was eating on his own. If we were going to get him to oncology, we desperately needed to see he had a drive to want food. But with aggressive lymphoma in the abdomen, mixed with his wonderful husky stubbornness, they could not get my boy to eat.

On Sunday, we got a call from oncology: if we could transfer him to their ICU overnight, they could admit him to oncology first thing Monday morning. Finally, a little piece of good information. But he had to eat. I knew he was being stubborn – yes, sick, yes, cancer – but I saw that light in his eye; he wanted to try. So I asked if I could come and offer him his favorite treat and a ride in the car with papa. They had tried chicken, beef, even steak, and he didn’t want it. But if he would take some food, we could make the transfer.

I got to the hospital at 5 o’clock. The minute he heard my voice, they said he popped up in his run and came trotting out. I pulled his favorite burger patty out of the McDonald’s bag and said, “Let’s have a bite and go for a ride with papa.” He didn’t just eat it; he devoured it, wagging his tail as he pranced to the car. He knew papa was here. One obstacle down.

Hope, and the Unseen Cost

We drove over to the ICU of the oncology department, and they checked him in. They let me know they would be running all new labs – bloodwork, ultrasounds – to get a baseline. There were some specialty tests they would need for him to start chemo, and we would hopefully be starting protocols in the morning. It was so hard to say goodbye again, but I truly felt he was making strides.

But then reality hit once again: the bill for one night in the oncology ICU. This wasn’t even the oncology visit or the chemo. $4,665. I didn’t care; I’d promised myself whatever it took. That night, knowing he was in the hands of the oncology ICU, I thought my mind would finally get a chance to rest a little bit. And for a while, I did, relieved that he was in good hands. But then the financial reality of the situation started setting in. I had already paid over $10,000 to keep him stable for four days. I hadn’t even gotten a bill for oncology, and until we knew the class and details of the cancer, I wouldn’t know the cost of chemo. I hope no one ever has to go through the stress of worrying if they have enough money to save something’s life. I hope no one is ever put in that situation.

A Warrior’s Return Home: Sasuke’s Undeniable Spirit

The next morning brought some good news. Sasuke had made it through the night and had gotten in with our amazing oncologist. While his survival length was low, his prognosis was not terrible. Given the placement of the masses, his blood levels and values, and the type of cancer (we still didn’t know the subtype), she was confident that if we started the L-HOP protocol, he would begin to see results and regression in hours. She wanted to start the L and P of the L-HOP protocol immediately, believing he would be well enough to go home in hours and start eating at home – that’s how fast the medications begin to work. I was fully on board.

Two hours later, I got the call. He was responding to the meds! They were able to remove the feeding tube and IV fluids. He was unanimously nauseous and might see some vomiting, but he was showing the want and desire for food and liquid, and he could come home. Such a great sign. Then, on my way there, I wondered what the cost would be for the oncology visit and first treatment. Again, I didn’t care; I was just glad we were seeing results.

I got there, and they brought Sasuke out to me. He was truly a different dog than he had been for the last 72 hours. He had his brightness back, his tail was straight up, and he was so happy to see me. I received the novel of medications he would need temporarily while the early pieces of chemo started working, and I checked him out. $5,400. But I didn’t care. He was heading in the right direction.

Boy, was he glad to be home. He came through the front door, and I had chicken, rice, and cottage cheese ready. He devoured it. He drank some water, and then he let me know it was time to lay down. He sat on the bottom step of the stairs leading up to the bedroom and let out his little husky vocals, signaling, “Dad, upstairs now.” He was so happy; he just wanted to lay in bed with papa and get pets. So, that’s exactly what we did. He slept, he ate, he drank, and most importantly, he wagged his tail and gave kisses.

The Unimaginable: A Seizure and a Silver Lining

Then, the unimaginable happened. At about five AM, I woke up from a dead sleep. I hadn’t truly rested in days, having crashed out around two AM after watching Sasuke carefully on his first night home, just happy for every minute. But I woke with a terrible sense of dread. I looked down, and Sasuke was sleeping peacefully at my feet, looking so comfortable. I told myself I was overreacting and closed my eyes. Not thirty seconds later, Sasuke shot up, threw himself against the wall, and started convulsing. He was having a full grand mal seizure.

My mind went haywire. Had they given him the wrong medicine? Was the cancer in his brain? Was a mass pushing against an organ? Sasuke is a husky, and they are prone to seizures; he’d had one in his life before, so I recognized the signs. He threw himself onto his side, started wheezing, and his limbs ran uncontrollably. These types of seizures can last anywhere from thirty seconds to two minutes; his previous one had been about a minute long. This one was quick, about thirty seconds, and he was back. But he had lost control of his bowels, which hadn’t happened before. My mind immediately went to the worst.

As soon as he was stable, I scooped him into the car, and we headed back to the ICU. They immediately checked him in, around 5:45 AM. It was finally ten AM when I got the call, having just sat in my car with my other dog, waiting. The oncology doctor pulled me into the room, and I just wept. No sleep, days of worry, stress, and now, after everything, it was looking so bad. She hugged me, and that’s when she whispered, “Chris, it was a good thing.” I thought to myself, how could this possibly be a good thing in any way? But I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

A Twist of Fate: The Right Diagnosis and Protocol

That’s when she told me. It had taken so long because Sasuke had been to neurology, he had been to ICU – he’d had full panels done, and they had rushed the lab cells over to find out his subclass of lymphoma. My boy had another bad roll of the dice, but this time, it led to clarity. His seizure was 100% coincidental. Seizures can be triggered by stress, environmental changes, diet changes, all of which his last five days had been full of. However, the seizure forced them to run full panels. In those panels, they found a low red blood cell count. That low red count led them to do another ultrasound for bleeding and forced the panels of his typing.

He was a T-cell lymphoma of the GI. They now knew exactly what protocol to go with, and it was far less harmful than the original proposed. It also left the previous protocol as a backup for rescue therapy. They also saw every single level and test had drastically improved overnight, with the exception of the red blood cells, which were low simply because the mass was shrinking rapidly. All of this, because his seizure forced additional testing. We quickly course-corrected, and he began his new protocol at ten AM.

A New Path Forward: Sasuke’s Resurgence

Sasuke is officially on a very responsive chemo, specifically for his subtype and his lymphoma. He was released at four PM. He has eaten three times today. He has been up and running around. He has cuddled, and he has been truly amazing. His new chemo is once every three weeks, just a pill, as opposed to a weekly transfusion. The long-term remission is much higher with this type and this treatment. We checked out, another $4,800. It didn’t matter; we are doing whatever it takes.

The Purpose of Sasuke’s Journey: A Beacon of Hope, Support, and Knowledge

When Sasuke’s world, and mine, was shattered by the lymphoma diagnosis, I found myself desperately searching online, not for sterile statistics, but for real stories. I yearned to know what other families truly experienced. Did their dogs have a good quality of life? Was it worth the heartbreaking decisions? Were there miracle stories, or difficult endings? Who found different protocols and saw great results? This website is born from that need – a place to share Sasuke’s raw, honest journey, to connect with others facing similar battles, and to serve as an emotional outlet for me and hopefully for you.

Our Mission: Supporting Sasuke, and Future Champions

If there’s one thing I know in this life, it’s that my animal karma is beyond reproach. I have fostered, adopted, and rescued at every possible chance, and I’ve always donated to animal causes when I could. I know that some of us have the means to donate and help, and regardless of whether I receive even one dime, I will give up everything to ensure Sasuke receives the best possible care. In just five days, our vet bills are already nearing $20,000. The current chemo protocol is approximately $3,000 per week for twenty weeks.

Should Sasuke reach full remission, he’s a candidate for a T-cell transfusion, which could exponentially increase his life expectancy – an estimated $10,000. Depending on his body’s response and ability to achieve remission, he may also be viable for radiation to eradicate masses, ranging from $10,000 to $20,000. And this is all without factoring in any extra visits, emergency protocols, or unexpected pop-ups. No one should ever have to worry about whether they have enough money to save a member of their family.

To ensure complete transparency, I will post all bills, so you can see exactly where every donated dollar is allocated. In the unlikely event that Sasuke passes or no longer needs the funds, every remaining dollar will be channeled directly to the next champion in need, helping another family fight for their beloved pet.

Building a Community of Knowledge and Support

Beyond being an emotional outlet and a fundraiser, I envision this space evolving into a comprehensive resource, a stepping stone to the next story after mine. There is simply too much uncertainty surrounding canine lymphoma, and I want to shed some light on this devastating disease. This isn’t just about monetary contributions; your thoughts, your stories, and simply sharing this website and Sasuke’s journey can reach countless people. Even if you cannot help financially, please share our story. Your support, in any form, makes all the difference.