Not As Good News

If you talked to either of us at all this week, you probably know that we weren't expecting very good news at Hope's chemotherapy treatment this morning. After a positive report from the vet last Wednesday, we continued to monitor the size of Hope's tumor on a daily basis, so we immediately became aware when it started growing again following her last visit. The change was fairly significant, and apparently it had started to irritate her once more. We can only assume that she must have been itching it yesterday afternoon, as there was a dramatic change in size in about a four hour period.

Unfortunately, this morning the tumor was nearly the size it had been when Hope started chemotherapy four weeks ago. This means the vet is again terming her cancer "progressive disease," whereas the last two weeks she considered it to be in partial remission. While this is obviously solemn news, the vet's intention is not to give up on Hope, but rather to accelerate the surgery timetable. We will meet with the surgeon on Tuesday of next week, and hopefully then she'll be able to remove the tumor without disrupting Hope's urinary tract.

What we do have going for us in the next six days is Prednisone. During the first week of Hope's treatment when her tumor responded favorably, she was taking high doses of this steriod. The treatment protocol is to start with higher doses of the drug and then reduce the dose during the next three weeks of treatment. Since the Prednisone was clearly playing a huge role in her improvement, this week she'll take the high dose again, and we're praying that her tumor will respond the same way it did the first time.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and concern for Hope. I'll let you know in a few days if we're seeing any improvement. Until then, I'll leave you with some adorable pictures (taken with my Palm) of her and Celtic on our way home from KC this morning.

Chemo poops her out!


Celtic pooped out too, but Hope made a good pillow...

...even when she was sleeping sitting up!


Thanks again for your prayers, everyone!