Mon., Nov. 8, 2010 - Biopsy results

About an hour ago, Dr P called me back with the biopsy results and he's stumped and doesn't know exactly what to make of them.  The biopsy results clearly showed nasal chondrosarcoma cells which is bad news.  More bad news is that the biopsy didn't say anything about any dead or necrotic tissue which Dr P would have expected to see because of the radiation.  The only glimmer of hope is that the biopsy showed no evidence of tumor cells dividing. 

These results might not be reflective of the whole tumor though.  I mentioned in my last post about the fact that because we had done radiation, a part of the tumor can be doing something different than where the biopsy was taken from.  So, we don't know if this is the original tumor that just wasn't killed by the gamma knife radiation, if it is the original tumor that still might die from the radiation and is just taking longer than expected to die, or if this is a new tumor that has grown after the radiation killed the original tumor.  It's all very confusing to me, and also Dr P.

Dr. P prides himself on his gut feelings that he has for his animal patients and what their outcomes might be.  For the first time, Dr P doesn't have a gut feeling on how this will turn out.  This doesn't sit well with me, and I don't know where to go from here.

Our options are limited.  One option is to wait it out and CT again in 2 months to see what the tumor is doing, and if the radiation did any more to kill the tumor.  I don't think I can just wait around for another 2 months to see what the tumor is doing.  That scenario doesn't fit into my being proactive plan.  The other slim possibility is to try chemotherapy.  Chemo doesn't generally work for nasal tumors and is very expensive, not that gamma knife radiation wasn't.  Dr P said he might not try the chemo route until he saw positive proof in 2 months that the radiation hadn't cleared the tumor since in nasal tumors chemo is used as a last resort.

If we did try chemo now and the tumor did shrink when we CT again in 2 months, we would have no way of knowing whether the chemo or radiation killed the tumor.  I needed to know if that aspect played any role in what Dr P was telling me now as far as choices.  I said my dog's life has to come before his research, and he agreed 100%.  I would like to not do anything to screw up this new field of gamma knife radiation research so that what Hardee has been through will benefit others who come after us, but not at the expense of Hardee's life.

We haven't has enough time to digest these latest results yet or sit down and talk about it as a family (Jim is still at work), but I am leaning towards the chemo last ditch option.  I need to try anything and everything to save my boy.  I'll talk to Jim tonight about scheduling an appointment with the local oncologist to see what he has to say.

Even with our news today, it is all about joy and all about Hardee!  Please keep the faith.