I’m not a scientist either, although i play one on tv. Lol.  I just read a ton when i put my mind to understanding something. 

Suzanne is correct, the good thing about the Yale vaccine is that it can be utilized with other treatments.  ELIAS can’t be.  It can also be used at any time.  Even after metastasis. The only thing that excludes a dog altogether from Yale is if you use another immunotherapy first.  Which is partly why I’ve struggled with making a decision between the two. I decided early on that i would utilize immunotherapy for Ophelia if i could.  The question for me was how do i also work in chemotherapy.  I wanted to hit her cancer with everything possible.  I’d have utilized radiation too if it had been an option for me. F this disease.  Excuse my language.  

From my amateur understanding of the two immunotherapies that I’ve mentioned, the main difference can be summarized fairly briefly and straight forward:

Yale uses the same general vaccine on all dogs that are treated with it. The reason that i refer to it as “general” is that it is the same vaccine for all dogs.  It attacks two genes (HER2 and EGFR) that are very common in specific cancers.  Osteosarcoma being one of those.  It doesn’t do anything with T cells as far as i can tell.  

ELIAS, on the other hand, is a vaccine made specifically for each dog.  It’s why it’s not available if the dog has already had amputation. They need the limb in their lab quickly to use the tumor inside of it to create the vaccine. So if a dog has already had amputation, it is already too late to use ELIAS.  

Once the vaccine is ready, it is injected into the dog.  They let three weeks pass and then a process to take the dogs blood for its T cells.  I can’t remember what that process is called right now but it’s fairly intensive. It’s not just taking a blood sample for typical blood work.  

The hope is that the vaccines has triggered the dogs T cells (which are part of the immune system) to attack the cancer cells. Cancer generally isn’t detected by the immune system because it’s recognized as being the cells of that dog (or person). So the immune system doesn’t do its job.  It is essentially tricked by the cancer. But the vaccine teaches it to recognize the cancer as something bad that needs to be removed.  

The T cells are then shipped back to the ELIAS lab for “super charging”.  This is the part that i have no understanding of. The process is patented and there is literally no information available.  Once the T cells are “super charged”, they are put back into the dog to seek out the cancer and destroy it. i heard the CEO of ELIAS describe it like this - “we take out soldiers (T cells) and return them as an army (billions of supercharged T cells)” (paraphrased). 

Anyway, all of that sounds awesome.  But the sacrifices make it a gamble.  There can’t be a full utilization of chemotherapy, and the Yale vaccine is no longer an option.  So it literally comes down to whether or not the dog responds biologically.  These sacrifices are what keep me up at night.  

And ELIAS is expensive.  Insurance won’t pay for it because it is considered experimental.  

I hope this very rudimentary explanation helps someone understand these two immunotherapies.  

I meant to share this yesterday. I finally found something that worked for Ophelia to help her get into the car.  It’s large and cumbersome though.  I can’t say it’s easy to use.  I found it at Chewy

Hi everyone.  There isn’t a whole lot to update on since i last posted.  Ophelia continues to do really well (knock on wood).  She is now going up and down my stairs regularly which is great because i don’t have to sleep on the couch downstairs, like i did for the first month, or feel guilty about leaving her down there by herself.  She always used to come upstairs and lay next to the bathroom door when i showered.  She’s now back to doing that even.  She has her third chemo infusion next week and then we will begin the ELIAS immunotherapy shortly after.  I’m not completely sure how the timing will go on that.  I actually have an email in to the oncologist asking for a general timeline.  

@Sally and Jerry - yes, i do plan on utilizing a physical therapist with her 3D prosthetic.  She has been in PT for 18 months prior to all of this but hasn’t been back since the amputation. I wanted to give her some time to recover.  I’m not sure how much experience that they have with full let prosthetic though so I would definitely take a look at any recommendations that you have readily available.  Otherwise I will probably talk to her current physical therapist and/or call around.  

@Eustacia - the black wrap on her carpal/wrist os a brace that was recommended by the pain management doc at the animal hospital where she is being treated.  I made a previous post that included everything that he recommended but let me know if you would like me to repost it.  I can’t think of the name of the website that the doc recommended for the brace.  I think, walkabout pets or something like that. 

@Christine - no worries about the short post.  I completely, one-hundred percent, understand the depression.  I’ve also been struggling with that since the diagnosis.  Even with Ophelia doing really well right now, i feel that her illness dominates my thoughts every day.  If/when will the illness come back scares me.  I’m constantly finding or seeing something in her body that freaks me out until i talk myself down.  Second guessing the treatment options also has stressed me out a lot.  Mostly though it’s the thoughts of just making every day happy for her.   She is such a happy dog and so curious about the world. It kills me to think that her life may be cut short and she will be short changed on her life experiences because of this.  So every minute that i have to spend working or away from her feels like a minute wasted.  And unfortunately it is too hot during the day to do much outside.  So that’s also limiting what i can do with her.  I’m planning a trip to vail later this month where it will be cooler.

Anyway, i do understand. I think of coming to this website and sharing more with other people going through this and trying to keep up with what they’re going through, but it’s not easy when I’m going through it still, and i have to balance everything that i mentioned above with all of my stupid responsibilities.  

i just went and read your story and realized that it was one of the first ones that i saw when i found this site.  I don’t see and update past the end of June.  I’d certainly be interested in understanding more about the ups and downs you mention but only if you find a moment where you have the energy to do so. Who knows though, you might find that someone here has some solutions?  

here are some videos of Ophelia from this morning.  🙂