After blind Helen had a terrible experience with gastrointestinal hemorrhaging last December as a side-effect of her chemotherapy, our vets decided it was time for a "chemo holiday." It was going to be only for a few weeks, but the hemorrhaging really took a lot out of Helen, and she just wasn't herself. So we elected to extend her chemo holiday until she seemed to have enough strength back. Finally, about a week ago, I took her to our vet clinic in Helena for a baseline exam before restarting the chemo. Amazingly, the chest X-rays showed the cancerous nodules in her lungs had completely disappeared; this didn't mean there was no need for further chemotherapy, but it was proof the treatment had been working better than anyone expected.
But her bloodwork came back showing that one of her kidney values, the BUN, was elevated. The oncologist at WSU who's been directing Helen's cancer treatment told our primary care vet, Dr. Jennifer Rockwell, that renal insufficiency can be a side-effect of the chemo drug we had her on, but the elevated BUN could have been from a number of other things, too. The oncologist wanted us to do an ultrasound of her kidneys to see if there was any kind of tumor there, as well as do a specific type of urinalysis to measure kidney function.
So today I took Helen with me to Missoula to see our internal medicine specialist there, Dr. Dave Bostwick, for an ultrasound and a urine sample. Dave scanned her kidneys, spleen, liver and other organs and found no evidence of any tumor involvement. Whew! It will take several days for the urinalysis results to come back, but based on the ultrasound, we are very encouraged by her prognosis. Honestly, when we first saw the nodules in her lungs last year, we didn't think she would have made it this far.
Once we get the urinalysis back, Jennifer will consult with the oncologist again and map out the new course of treatment. In the meantime, Helen had this to share:
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Please vote
for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge — and you can
vote every day! We're currently in third place, putting us on track to
win $3,000 for the animals. Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state
postal code,
MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.
Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Last
year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand
Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for
a wonderful gift for the animals here.
Thank you!
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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