For Your Consideration

My friend, Karen, put together an Oscar-worthy short film to celebrate Abby's fourteen month ampuversary. You may recall that I refer to her first two lung mets (a.k.a. "lung mints" on the Tripawd's site - hence the film's title) as Boris and Natasha.

Okay, Oscar voters - here it is; for your consideration, I give you: The Mints

Isn't that hysterical?? I think it is the best film ever made. Karen found the Boris & Natasha ornaments while going through some old family Christmas stuff, and of course she immediately thought of Abby's lung "mints."

In other news, my nephew's girlfriend graciously offered to do a photo shoot with us. (Thanks again, Tee!) Of course, Abby came out looking great in all of them. She's not a super model for nuthin'. Here is my fave shot of the three of us. (As you can see, the weather was terrible here on New Year's Day!)

And here is another one that I think is super sweet: (Abby LOVES her some tummy rubs!)

I'm so glad we were able to get the pictures done. That would have been a big regret of mine, if we didn't manage to get a really good picture of the three of us together before it's, ya know..., too late...

In other BIG news, next week on the 11th, Abby is going to get to meet Wyatt Ray - the official Tripawd's spokesdog. Wyatt Ray belongs to the folks who started Tripawds. They lost their beloved Jerry (the "original" Tripawd and reason the whole Tripawd's site was started) to osteosarcoma, but now have Wyatt. Wyatt is a back leg amp. He does not have cancer (Hooray!) but is a tripawd due to the mean people (I just want to interject here that mean people suck) who left him tied up and never paid attention to him. Luckily that former life is way behind him. He is livin' the good life now! We can't wait to meet him. He is actually coming to Fiesta Island to meet Abby!

We are also going to meet this guy maniac. Isn't he cute frightening?!

We are excited trepidatious. If we survive, I'll post pics next week. :)

HO? HO? HO?

Abby had her xray today and the GREAT news is that the lameness in her remaining front leg is NOT from the cancer spreading. In fact, her bone not only did NOT looked compromised at all - it looked beautiful (just like her outsides... just like she's been saying all along...). But, there was too much of it. Yeah, too much bone, caused by this apparently rare disease called Hypertrophic Osteopathy (HO). Dr. V. said it's so rare some doctor's might not have known what the problem was, but being an oncologist he has seen it before, since it is thought to be caused by a tumor(s) in the lungs.

So, it was not the best case scenario (which would have been an overuse injury) and it was not the worst case scenario (which would have been bone cancer and more or less game over). It's a rare and unique case - just like our girl.

I've been saying all along that Dr. V. says her lung "mets" are not acting like normal mets. Normally, once the disease metastasizes (when will I learn to spell that word? It takes me 7 tries to get it right each time...) the dog's lungs fill with lots of little mets - or "lung mints" as we sometimes like to call them on Tripawds. But Abby doesn't have lots of little "mints." She's got a coupla biggish ones and a small one. So, I guess her not-normal mets have led us down this not-normal path.

Dr. V. says the pain will sort of wax and wane, so we have the okay again to take her on walks, as long as she seems willing (and she definitely does, at least the last couple of days). She can even go back to the beach. He gave us some piroxicam (an NSAID, so that should help with inflammation) and tramadol (to help control the pain).

He is going to discuss possible treatment options with the rest of the oncologists there at Vet Cancer Group and then we'll talk more later.

The other good news is that the Masitinib (which we've been trying to get her started on for a while now) should not only help with the tumors in her lungs, but it should also possibly help w/ the HO. So, Masitinib here we come again. Hopefully this 3rd time will be the charm!

So... like I said, it's not great news because she is in pain from it, but it's not as bad as the pain from bone cancer would be (which probably explains why she's still been trying to get me to play with her), AND she is not at risk for a fracture - which is a huge relief.

Hopefully we still have a lot more time with our girl. I had been thinking we might be down to our last few days and that she might never get to go to the beach again, but hopefully we'll have her a bit longer and she can go back to Fiesta Island soon (just want to try a few short neighborhood/park walks first and see how they go before turning her loose at the beach).

Thanks everyone for the good thoughts. I'll post more when I know more.