A couple of random factoids about my dog’s cancer treatment that I found amusing and/or interesting:

• In order to administer the chemo drugs, the vet, of course, needs to shave the injection site, which is located on the leg. The course of treatment will run long enough that the vet will need to use several different injection sites to avoid discomfort and/or problems for the dog, so all four legs will end up with shaved spots. Apparently, however, the fur won’t grow back at those spots. I don’t know if that’s a side effect of the drugs or something to do with dog physiology or what, but, assuming he survives the cancer, Shadow will have permanent “battle scars.” I have asked my folks to try and convince the vet to line up the shaved bits. It will drive me crazy if my dog ends up with asymmetical bald patches.
• The vet is obtaining the chemo drugs from the Huntsman Cancer Institute, one of the preeminent cancer research and treatment centers in the country, which is conveniently located at the University of Utah here in Salt Lake. Which means that the drugs used to treat dogs with cancer are the very same ones used on humans who have cancer; they just dial back the dosage to account for the differences in body size.
  I don’t know why that surprises me, but it does…