Looks like I'm long overdue for an update. Since my last post Brick had another visit with the vet college to do another biopsy and CT scan. The biopsy proved inconclusive and the scan showed that the dark spot on his arm had grown a bit. We decided we were going to opt for the limb sparing procedure after much discussion seeing as he is such a high energy active older pup.

The strangest thing happening after his second biopsy though,....he stopped limping. We chalked it up to the meds he was on, but something in my heart was thinking otherwse. We started upping his daily walks back to the normal hour long time and he still wasn't limping after.

He was scheduled for his surgery last week, but it got postponed to Friday April 31 due to waiting on the rest of the parts needed for the limb spare surgery. He went in for his pre op check up yesterday for blood work etc. When we went to pick him up after work the surgeon said she had a pleasant surprise for us. They did another set of X-rays on his arm and it showed that the dark spot in his bone had started to disappear! She said there could be a couple reasons for this, but the most likely that it wasn't cancer after all, but possibly a bone cyst (very rare and uncommon, but she has personally seen it happen). After the second biopsy she believes the pressure inside could have been released and the bone is healing itself in that area. Time will tell, but as of now he is off his meds and walking fine. He's scheduled for another X-ray to recheck it in a month but in the mean time we are monitoring him. As a celebration of the great news we took him to the puppy park in his favorite mode of transportation....his VW bus!

Well it's been a little over 2 months since my last up date. It' been a very tough year for both us and Brick and what can be best described as a roller coaster ride. Since my last post everything seemed OK, and the following X-ray since the biopsy of his leg showed that the mass had shrunk a small amount. We were excited but still a bit guarded by the news. June seemed to be a good month for him , but then July came and things took a turn for the worse. We noticed his appetite diminished a lot which was highly unusual for him. We took him to our vet and she confirmed that there was something showing on the x-ray she did of his liver and spleen area. We were referred back to the U of S vet College where they have better equipment to see what was going on. They found that there was a mass on his spleen and surgery was necessary.

2 weeks ago he had the surgery to remove the tumour on his spleen which turned out to be hermangiosarcoma. There were lesions found on his liver and stomach which were biopsied also. He recovered quite quickly after the spleen surgery, but his leg started bothering him again. After this we decided to go with the palliative radiation on his leg to make him comfortable since we knew our time was limited with him and the limb saving was no longer an option, and we wanted to make the best of his remaining time. Unfortunately after his first radiation treatment he developed internal bleeding from one of the lesions on his liver. An ultrasound confirmed that in the 2 weeks since his spleen surgery the liver had become so diseased with cancer that there was nothing we could do. I'm extremely heart broken to report that we lost our baby boy on Wednesday July 15th at approx. 7:45 PM. I take comfort knowing that we were with him in his last hours and held him tight when he made the trip to the rainbow bridge.We are both gutted by the loss of him and have a huge empty space in our hearts and in our house. He was truly that once in a life time dog. RIP my sweet baby boy Brick, til we meet again.

May he always ride shotgun with us in his VW bus that he loved so much.