Miss Liberty in the Spring Sunshine, originally uploaded by pmarkham.

It has been a spring full of unpleasant news around our house and this was one of those pieces of bad news. Liberty, our 12 year-old Labrador, was diagnosed with cancer at the end of April. Oddly enough, it is squamous cell carcinoma in the nail bed of one of her toes. This is VERY similar to the type of cancer that Emmet, my other lab, had a few years back.

We’ve decided not to try and treat the cancer itself — just the symptoms. Libby has been taking prednisone for the last seven years to control her skin allergies. She also has a partially paralyzed larynx. Given those two things, her age, and the fact that this is a very aggressive form of cancer, we’ve opted to just treat her symptoms with medications and keep her with us as long as she is comfortable. The vets thought she might be with us through the fall, but only time will tell.

We are a couple of months into this now and so far we’ve been able to manage her disease fairly well. She has had three courses of antibiotics to keep the infections at bay. She gets pain medication every day to keep her foot from being too sore. We also have to bandage her foot a few days each week as the tumor will break open and bleed. So far, all of this has kept her relatively “normal”. She still eats well, sleeps well, and has been able to walk with us on most days.

I’m not looking forward to the day I need to say goodbye to her. She has been a very sweet dog.