Callie had her MRI this morning at WSU's veterinary teaching hospital, followed by a spinal tap for analysis of her cerebrospinal fluid. I took this photo of Dr. Fidel, the oncologist, holding Callie after she had recovered from the anesthesia. You can tell she is still pretty much out of it, bless her little heart. The back of her neck was shaved for the spinal tap.
Before Dr. Fidel had brought Callie out so I could see her, Dr. Fred Wininger — a neurologist we know well from previous cases we've taken to WSU — showed me Callie's MRI images:
Dr. Wininger explained that based on the MRI, both he and Dr. Chen as neurologists and Dr. Fidel as an oncologist were all pretty confident that Callie did indeed have a menigioma tumor. (For this and other reasons, it didn't make sense for her to participate in the clinical trial I had mentioned in yesterday's post.) He said we could take one of two approaches: a combination of surgery to physically excise the tumor and then radiation to ensure no regrowth, or radiation alone. The surgery entailed higher risks because it would, in fact, be brain surgery, but it would give her probably 3 to 4 years — so the "returns" would be higher, too. This was the "go all in" course. It would also probably double the total cost. The other option was to do the three-week course of radiation alone, which Dr. Fidel estimated would give Callie 2 to 3 years.
Given her age (we think about 12) and the prospect of putting her through brain surgery, and then looking at the extra benefit as being perhaps only an additional year of life when she would already be 14 or 15 … well, we didn't think that was worth it.
So after sitting down and talking through this at length with Dr. Wininger and Dr. Fidel, we decided to pursue the radiation-only option. That was the original game plan all along, but of course it depended on the MRI and any other additional findings, and we always want all the options put on the table so we can make a fully informed decision.
Thus Callie's first radiation treatment will be tomorrow, and I said goodbye to her this afternoon and made the 5-hour drive back to the ranch. I know I left her in good hands:
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