Treatment begins

Today's the day we start treating Harvey's cancer in earnest.
Hemangiosarcoma is one of the most aggressive and difficult canine cancers. It's a cancer of the cells lining the blood vessels, so it can cause tumors anywhere in the body, but the most common locations seem to be the spleen, liver, heart or lungs.
Harvey's tumor was on the spleen, causing a rupture two and a half weeks ago. He was finicky about eating for about two weeks prior to the evening of 11/23. Results from bloodwork was unremarkable, though he did have a slightly elevated white blood cell count. We took him home from his exam with some antibiotics and planned to keep an eye on him for additional symptoms.
That Sunday, the 23rd, I noticed he just didn't look right and, upon examination, I found that his mouth tissues were very pale, his abdomen felt "spongy" and his extremities were cold to the touch. We rushed him up to Circle City Emergency Clinic, where they immediately began diagnostics to determine a cause.
The attending vet, Dr. Towns, ran bloodwork, took x-rays, put him on a heating pad to bring up his body temperature, then came to tell us that the signs pointed to hemangiosarcoma. She suggested doing a blood transfusion, but said that it "might just buy him a couple more hours". We were distraught.
We thought we might lose him that night, so we decided that we wanted him home in his own bed, not left alone in a kennel at the clinic, if it was to be our last night with him.

I stayed awake all night, monitoring his breathing, checking his gums and mouth tissues, as Dr. Towns had suggested. Around 3 AM, I thought I noticed his gums starting to look pink again. I was sure I was imagining it or it was just wishful thinking. Sure enough, by morning he was feeling energetic and was eager for his car ride to our primary vet, Dr. Kim Skibbe, for an exam and follow up to the previous night's crisis.
Dr. Skibbe set up an appointment for an ultrasound for our boy at Veterinary Specialty Center in Carmel, IN, the same facility that had done such a fantastic job with Harvey's hemilamenectomy when he ruptured 3 discs in his back in 2006. They did find a mass on his spleen, but saw no other signs that would indicate any other organ involvement at that point. Hemangiosarcoma (HSA) was a very real possibility, but it could also have been a benign mass or a different type of cancer. A splenectomy was recommended, since it was very likely that whatever it was would rupture again and he could bleed out, even from a benign growth.

That was on 11/26/08. The biopsy did come back as HSA, so the prognosis was grim. The good news, if there can be such a thing with this disease is that his liver biopsy showed no metastasis and the surgeon, Dr. Stauffer, felt his other organs and tissues "looked fine".
After consulting with a highly respected oncologist and doing a ton of research on my own, we have decided to try an alternative treatment called Neoplasene, instead of chemotherapy. Chemo offers very little hope of doing anything more than extending his life by a few months, so we feel we're not losing anything by trying something different, outside of the typical protocols for the treatment of this disease.

Neoplasene was first mentioned to me by Dr. Towle when I called her for advice even before we received the pathology report. It hasn't been widely used for this type of canine cancer, but has shown promise in quite a few cases. Frank and I feel that it's our best hope at this point and, at the very least, it doesn't seem to come with as many risks as chemo.

Harvey had his first dose tonight with his dinner, along with some supplements that Dr. Towle suggested. We're praying as hard as we can that this is our answer to a long term remission and a lot more quality time with our special little guy!