Battling osteosarcoma
Been a little crazy with life and work and kids, but here’s a Sam update.
Last Wednesday he made the journey to Columbia, did a lameness test Thursday morning and was injected with CycloSam on Thursday afternoon. A week in radiation isolation and the. We wait. Fingers and toes crossed.
My mom and I made the trip to Columbia today and met with Dr Selting and the senior vet student. Sam was really nervous and kind of grumpy that he couldn’t have food or water. The exam went kind of as I expected and we went through all the explanations of options. We had blood tests, a biopsy run. The biopsy is to confirm the OSA.
Sam stayed there for all of the tests while we had lunch at Panera. We were told 2 hours, but it ended up being 3. We got a call from Sarah that the biopsy had come back as consistent with OSA, confirmed by the cytologist as OSA. They wanted to do the next step of the bone scan. As I write this, we are on the way back home while Sam becomes less radioactive from the bone scan. I pick him up tomorrow in Columbia after orientation for Summer school. It’s going to be a long summer of driving back and forth. I hope.
Waiting:
I mentioned in my last post that there was a clinical trial Sam might be able to participate in that may be able to pay for some checmo treatments. I took him to the vet today to check on some lumps and bumps that would have excluded him from participation, they ended up being fatty cell tumors and not mast cell tumors, he’s otherwise healthy, so off we go.
Sam has an appointment next Thursday and so I cancelled his amputation appointment for tomorrow.
They’re testing a new not-yet approved drug called CycloSam. Yes, it’s radio active. But in the process, I figure we’ll learn a lot. I have to pay for a bone scan ($300). And if he’s a candidate, we get free chemo, radiation, followups and we *may* not have to amputate. Or, we will know at least how he’s going to respond.
There are lots of exclusionary factors and I have had most of them ruled out before making the (2 hour) journey. So, if you could keep your fingers, toes and paws crossed that Sam can participate, I’d appreciate it. I also feel that if we can help further medicine in this way….just a little bit…and also get some benefit from it, I’m all for it.
Here’s the information, in case there are others in my area who might be interested:
The vet still hadn’t called me when I got off work today at 5. I’d made calls to the 2 vet schools near me and talked to their oncology departments. There’s a promising clinical trial at University of Missouri, for treating bone cancer. However, we don’t think Sam will qualify because of some of the other health issues he has going on. It sounds like the trials are being done before they’re tested on humans. I wish we could help. Not this time.
I went to the vets office at 6:30, they close at 7. Without an appointment or a dog for that matter. You could say I get a little obsessive when I have something I’m really worris about/focused on. We discussed all the options and I shared that I’d found someone who could do the surgery for a LOT less. Amputation at our vet is $1800, more than I remembered being told before. Our vet said she would not be offended if we went elsewhere. So, action plan is X-rays there in the morning to check for mets and hope everything is ok. If it is we are headed an hour and 1/2 north to have surgery Weds morning. The cost will be $600 for the surgery and overnight stay. Say a little prayer for Sam, if that’s the kind of thing you do.
Sam is, hands down, the sweetest and smartest dog I’ve loved. He came into our lives in 2005, making him just about 9 years old now.
We werent going to get a dog, we were just going to look. I stumbled upon a young dog, about 6 months old who whined when I walked up to his cage and “broke the rules” by petting him through the bars. My heart immediately melted, my husband’s too. We weren’t immediately ready to get a dog (we had a 3 year old yellow lab, Emma, too). We decided to “think on it”.
We went antique shopping the following day where we found a mid century modern furniture set we’d been looking for for awhile. Blonde. Heywood Wakefield.
We decided that of the 2 blonde things we’d seen, we needed the puppy. The humane society was busy that weekend and only the dog soon-to-be-known as Sam and another black great Dane/lab mix were left. He’d waited for us. We brought Sam home.
Sam has been an amazing friend, companion and running buddy for Mike. He’s so patient with our 3 year old and 6 year old and we love him dearly.
Sam has had several medical “things” over the years. Hemhorragic gastroenteritis. A mast cell tumor removed from his hind leg, but nothing like the recent events. About a year ago, I noticed Sam’s eyes retained a “glow” and he was not seeing well anymore in the dark. I mentioned this at an exam and the vet said that Sam’s retina’s were looking like he had signs of “progressive retinal atrophy”.
On March 31st, Sam was out running with Mike. I got a phone call that Sam had most likely “had a seizure” and Mike needed help. We ended up getting Sam to the vet where chest and heart x-rays were run. Blood was taken, and all came back looking nice and clear.
The next day, we noticed Sam was limping on his right front leg. It was tender to the touch. We let him relax and “take it easy”. over the next week. The following Sunday came around and Sam’s paw was worse. Thinking perhaps he had broken it somehow in his fall the weekend before, I decided to hunt for a clinic that would be open on a Sunday afternoon. We ended up at a Banfield pet hospital about 40 minutes away. X-rays revealed no broken bones, but did show an area the vet thought could be bone cancer. We would have rather had a broken paw. The only way to know for sure was to consult with the radiologist. I decided to take the films to our vet the next day. It took a couple days, but the vet finally called me and said the radiologist there had looked at the films and the news was not good. Sam was given a diagnosis of osteosarcoma. I was educated quickly on OA. This was April 17th, 2014.
We were told amputation was the way to go, or we could treat with pain meds but told that Sam would eventually not use the leg. I usually do a lot of research into decisions like this, but we had 2 deaths in the family and I really had a hard time dealing with Sam. I’ve watched over the last 4 weeks. The doubt set in. Then, 8 days ago I had to put a 17 year old cat to sleep, and dealing with Sam came into the forefront again.
Yesterday, I decided to face the diagnosis and in my search found the tripawds site. Despite the cost, I convinced Mike and we made the decision yesterday to amputate Sam’s leg. He’s become increasingly more cautious when walking. He’s in pain. I hate that for him. I read encouraging stories here (and a couple of sad ones).
The final decision comes down to Sam. We owe it to him to try and make his last days (whether they’re just days, we’re able to combine days into months or if we can get another year for him) less painful than they are now. I would rather lose him trying to make that happen than watch him suffer as he will do if we do nothing.
I’m waiting for a call from our vet, but have scheduled Sam for Wednesday at 9:00am at another site (that’s less expensive). I’m not sure that we’ll use them, but my goal is to have surgery before Friday.
Will provide an update once I know what’s happening. I’ve been so grateful for all the words of encouragement and finding this site. It’s nice to know we’re not alone.
-Katie
