"Pet Mic Monday" is a new Dogvocates series based on an "open mic concept" where pet parents take over our blog to raise cancer awareness by discussing their pets diagnosis, treatment, and outcome with a worldwide community. This week, we are proud to feature Chestnut : A Corgi-mix rescue who recently lost his life to abdominal Lymphoma. During his last months of life, Chestnut’s parent started his life motto - “no regrets!” and boy did they live up to it! [Follow Dogvocates on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter]
Breed: Mutt. We guess Corgi / Pomeranian / Chihuahua
Gender: Male
Gotcha Day: 12/17/16
Death: 11/28/18
Diagnosis: Lymphoma. He showed no outwards signs, but his abdominal lymph nodes were enlarged. He was briefly in remission as a result of treatment, but the cancer eventually metastasized to his liver.
Treatment: CHOP protocol except using mitoxantrone instead of doxurobucine - 2 rounds of CHOP on a weekly interval, then the 3rd (and last) round of CHOP he received was biweekly. He was supposed to have 1 more biweekly but he passed away before he could start it.
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Chestnut lived a life of no regrets. He was a special dog. I’m sure every dog owner is biased and believes that about their dog, but Chestnut was special because of the many obstacles we had to overcome. We actually almost couldn’t keep him at one point. Especially after he was diagnosed with cancer, we wondered if we made the right decision to keep him when we had valid reasons to give him up before, but the lessons he taught us through his life and death lead me to believe that he was meant to be a part of our lives, just as much as we were meant to save his.
I wish we wanted a rescue dog out of the goodness of our hearts, but the truth is we wanted an adult corgi (my favorite breed) that was already housebroken. Chestnut looked like a mix and that was good enough for me. They said they found him as a stray and he was listed as 2 years old with no health or behavioral issues. He seemed great! We contacted the rescue, informed them we had no backyard and both worked full-time, and asked if Chestnut would be a good fit for us given that lifestyle. They said yes and told us to check him out. We saw him and instantly connected. The rescue said that we seemed like good people so they would bypass the home check. That sure was an ego boost. We took him home that day and our world was rocked upside down. The different vets we took him to gave us varying age ranges of 2-7 years old (we settled on 5). It was also clear that Chestnut had been an outdoor dog all his life, so becoming an indoor dog was a huge adjustment, especially because he had so much energy. A few weeks later, we found out he had severe epilepsy, which we believe is information that was withheld from us. A few months later, he began to have behavioral issues, including aggression towards us. We thought we were at the end of how much we could take.
We called Queen’s Best Stumpy Dog Rescue to ask if they could accept him because even though we loved him, we didn’t think we could care for him anymore, and we didn’t want him to end up back at the original rescue or the pound. QBSDR’s founder convinced us to give him one more chance. She promised she would help us through this, and she kept her word. She and the organization’s volunteers showed us so much patience and kindness when we took him on hikes or left him with the rescue when we went on vacation. We are forever grateful for their love, care, and generosity as Chestnut might not have been able to have a home without them. It took about a year of living with us for Chestnut to feel comfortable and for us to really enjoy having a dog rather than feeling drained by him. He finally understood that this was home and that we were family.
About 6 months later, our usually-always-hungry guy started eating less, until one day he wouldn’t eat at all and was throwing up constantly. We rushed him to the ER, where they recommended we get an ultrasound. It was more expensive than the standard blood work and x-rays, but I was glad we did it. The blood work and x-rays showed nothing concerning, but the ultrasound showed his abdominal lymph nodes were enlarged. A biopsy confirmed it was cancer. The oncologist believed that since it didn’t manifest externally, the cancer was quite severe and he’d only have 1-4 months to live, even on treatment.
What does it mean to live? What does it mean to have one more chance at life? He hadn’t made so much progress in his health and behavior for nothing.
“This is when we started our motto for Chestnut’s life – no regrets.”
The odds were slim, but we didn’t want to give up without giving him a chance, so we decided to pursue treatment with the goal always being to make sure he had a comfortable life. If at any point the treatment was harming him, we were ready to stop. Along with that, we didn’t think treatment was going to be worth it unless we made the most of his life. We were determined to go on adventures and make every last memory count.
In his last months, Chestnut lived life with so much fulfillment and meaning, probably better than some humans do. We had a family photoshoot, went out for beers together, took a boat tour, swam, hiked, went to a doggy art exhibit, visited the Staples Center, took a road trip to the Bay Area, visited UC Berkeley, went wine tasting at Jack London Square, and visited Google. During that time, he was able to eat cupcakes, strawberries, blueberries, salmon, broccoli, In-N-Out, McDonald’s ice cream, Starbucks puppuccino, pumpkin pie, bacon, prosciutto, and his absolute favorite- tacos. Others helped us give him a great life too by joining us on adventures, sending us care packages, letting him sit in a police car, and even drawing a caricature of him. Our favorite bucket list memory of him was when we went paddle boarding. He didn’t like that we were all drifting apart so he kept jumping off the board to swim to each of us! He even tried to keep the boards together with his front legs on one and back legs on the other. He ended up looking like slinky dog and falling into the water. It was funny and endearing. We believe love is what saved him. He outlived his prognosis and was in remission for a short time. He always had a smile on his face and he never seemed to be in pain, until he was.
The week before his death, we got word that his cancer had metastasized to his liver and he had an 8.5 x 10 cm tumor. Chestnut was only 18 lbs, so we imagine that the tumor on his liver must’ve been bigger than his actual liver. The fact that he was living with that large of a tumor was incredible and heartbreaking. He rarely showed signs of pain. Always smiling and happy. He lived with such a positive attitude because he loved us so much he didn’t want us to worry. That’s why when it was time, we really knew it was time. We made plans that we would wait until the late evening to put him to sleep because we wanted one last best day ever with him. We both took the day off work and had to think about what was left on his bucket list to accomplish. We realized there was nothing left- Chestnut had lived a full and complete life. We took him around his favorite park one last time, spent the day driving around to see people and dogs that he loved (human “cousin” pictured below), gave him his favorite tacos for one last meal, then we had to say goodbye to him.
I knew this day would come but I never imagined how incredibly hard and painful it would be. I miss him so much and I still cry when I think about living life without him, and that’s okay. How blessed were we that saying goodbye has been this hard? The pain of losing Chestnut is the worst thing I’ve ever felt, but I wouldn’t have it any other way because it shows what a meaningful impact he’s made on our lives.
Looking back, I’ve learned to take Chestnut’s cancer diagnosis as a blessing. I would never ever wish anyone the pain of having to live with knowing their dog has a terminal illness, nor do I want to do that again, however my best memories of Chestnut were made in his last 4.5 months.
“Life gave us lemons and we didn’t just make lemonade with it – we made lemon drops and lemon meringue pie, too.”
Some of #chestnutsbucketlist adventures would have never happened without this urgency to live. There are no guarantees in life so we knew we had to make every day count. We really lived everyday like it was his last.
It’s ironic to look back on the beginning and to how it all played out. Chestnut should have never been allowed to be our dog. I can’t even rationalize it because it was so irresponsible, but at the same time, this is the way it was supposed to be. Chestnut was meant to come into our lives just as much as we were meant to be in his. No regrets. That’s how we made sure he lived his life, and now, we must take this and the other lessons he’s taught us into our new lives without him. #chestnutslifeofnoregrets
Fun Fact: Chestnut was featured on the news in promotion of SoCal Corgi Beach Day and participated in a pie eating contest. He lost. (Click here to watch the pie eating contest - 2nd video)
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