Well, Twyla was out at the vets all day today to get her biopsy done. It went pretty well, they were able to get some good samples. She bled a LOT they said. They did let her come home tonight, which was nice. She’s pretty darn zonked out though. She can’t figure out how to lay down without using the shoulder/leg that was biopsyed. Hopefully she will feel better after a lot of sleeping. I do have to take her in in the morning to get checked and an IV connection removed.
Should get the results of the biopsy friday or monday, and can try and figure out next steps then. 🙁
Archive for January, 2006
Well, Twyla is much recovered from the biopsy on wed. Thursday she was still zonked and wouldn’t eat until I offered her some roasted chicken. She ate that right up.
Each day she’s gotten better. She still is limping today, but otherwise all her personality is back:
- She comes up and demands attention and petting.
- She was nosing her food around and trying to bury it in blankets
- She growled at kurt when he tried to take any of her food
- She was cockroaching (laying on her back with all 4 feet in the air) on the couch tonight.
- She whined a bunch when I gated her in the bedroom and took the boy dogs for a walk
We go back into the vet tomorrow morning for a 9:30am appt to just check her stitches and make sure she’s doing well.
Then it’s just waiting for the biopsy results to come back.
Well, went in this morning and the doc had gotten the path report back.
It’s osteo. 🙁
He is a nice guy and knows the usual treatment for this (amputation, followed by chemo), but suggested that they might know more up to the minute plans up at CSU.
So, I have an appt tomorrow morning at CSU for her to get looked at. I suspect they will say the same thing, but they might have some diffrent chemo drugs or plan
that will have a better chance of doing good. It’s hard to know what to do, but she is so happy and full of life I have to do everything I can until she lets me know it’s time to let go.
Well, went up to CSU this morning for my appointment there. I thought I was going to be late with all the traffic and stuff on I25, but I managed to make it just about right on time. CSU is a teaching vet center, so first I had 2 students check us in and get all the history and such. One of them looked at said she had met both Twyla and me before.
We figured out that it was a few years ago when Twyla was in a behavior class that she took. 🙂 Twyla was very happy for all the attention.
After they got all the information, they went and presented to the on-call staff doctor. He came in and we discussed options.
Really there weren’t many, here’s the plan:
– Twyla is staying at CSU today and tonight.
– They are going to do a full blood panel and look at her kidney values (She had been on kidney meds for a long time)
– They are going to do some more x-rays and see if there are any signs of cancer in the lungs.
– They are going to do a ‘Bone scan’. Basically give her some radioactive junk that attracts to signs of heavy cellular activity and shows up. This will tell us if there are any tumors on other legs, or somewhere else.
If all that looks good, they are going to amputate her left front leg tomorrow. My vet could have done it down here, but they mentioned that they do about 2 a week up there and really know how to do it. with any luck, she will get to come home tomorrow night.
Then, after recovering from that (10-14 days) and getting her stiches out, we will do some Chemo. The drug of choice is a thing called ‘cisplantin’, but it’s very hard on the kidneys, so there are two others that we might use, or even a combo of both.
I have heard back on the x-rays (no visible tumors aside from the leg one). Hurray!
I have heard back on the blood work (slightly high values on a few things, but within the acceptable range). Hurray!
I should hear back on the bone scan later tonight.
Wish her a safe and uneventfull surgery tomorrow.
UPDATE 16:46: The bone scan results are back, and the only thing showing in it is the cancer on her leg. Thats a good sign. Hurray!