Hi Marcia and Dane's Mom and everyone else:

I'm Rosie's Mom from Central Florida. Another member told me you all were talking about Stereotactic Radiation  also known as (SRS). So I thought I'd check your discussion out and tell you our experience if it might help. 

Rosie, my Golden Retriever had (SRS) Radiation last Sept 09.  She was 11 1/2 when diagnosed with Osteosarcoma.  She qualified for the treatment.  They had to see if she had enough good bone left before they would treat her.   The SRS treatment in Colorado University does do SRS treatment as well.  It is a little different than the one we got at the University of Florida, in Gainesville, Florida.  According to my Dr. at UF if I understand correctly.  He told me was a Dr.  at Colorado University  for awhile and now he's at Univ of Florida.  He is an excellent surgeon.    Anyway, he told me at Colorado they do more than one radiation treatment with the SRS there.   But at University of FL he said they are the only ones doing it with one shot of  SRS Radiation. It's actually done at the Brain Institute the same place where they use this same machine on humans!!    It's one powerful shot of radiation circumfrancing the tumor and the location of cancer on the leg where the tumor is on the leg gets hit from all angles.  And the outside circumfrance, where it goes thru the skin only gets hit once. Only the tumor gets the mega dose of radiation not the other areas around the tumor.   He showed me pictures on a computer of how it works.   He said it was a Gamble.  We tooks it.  Rosie was old and we couldn't bear the thought of amputating at her age.  He said the bone will be dead in that spot after the radiation.  They radiate a margin around the cancer too.  So a good part of the bone dies.  The bone does not live again, it's just dead bone.  But if there was a good portion of healthy bone around it it can work well.  That's why your dog's leg has to qualify for the treatment.  Rosie qualified.  So I had high hopes. However he did say there was a 30% chance that the leg could fracture as the bone becomes brittle.   70% of the dogs they had done had not fractured!  So I thought those were pretty good odds.  So I took it.

Unfortunately Rosie's leg did develop a hairline fracture 2 weeks after her SRS treatment.  She walked really good right after the SRS treatment we were so happy.  But then suddenly she developed a limp.  Upon xray they discovered she had a hairline fracture.  She could still walk and put weight on the leg.  So we began chemo.  She just finished her chemo in Jan.  But her limp has become much worse.  So now they want to amputate to relieve her of her pain.  So SRS can be wonderfull if you don't have the fracture.  In our case it has not worked as well as we had hoped.  We paid a lot of money for it and now we're going to end up where we started having to face Amputation after all.  We hope that she can make it thru this at her age.  THey say she would.  So we'll see.  But The University of Florida has a wonderful Small Animal Hospital.  They are in the process of building a whole new hospital will be done latter this year.  24hour care! 

However as far as Homeopathic options  I saw the other day on someone elses forum this Homeopathic Dr's website.  I have used him personally before for my cat.  He is very good and he has a wonderful website with tons of information.  Maybe this will help you if you're looking for natural cures.  http://www.char.....  He is in North Carolina and he does appts on the phone.  He will mail you natural remedies.  I did it with my cat who had mast cell cancer.    It didn't cure him I started to late.  But perhaps he can help you.

Also I give Rosie that K-9 Immunity you see advertised on the front page of the Tripawd website.  I started her with it right when she started Chemo.  She never got really sick with Chemo but we only had Carboplatin.  Her blood counts went low but she never vomitted.  So maybe the K-9 stuff worked.  It is expensive.  But I was willing to do everything both Eastern and Western medicine to help her. 

Hope you find some answers for your pup.  Sorry Maxx had a hard time with Chemo.  I had Doxorubican myself as I had breast cancer 5 years ago and that stuff is tough stuff.  It made me feel awful.  But it took out my cancer.  So I just got thru it.  But a poor animal, well I can't imagine how hard it is for them.  I think they give a lower dose. 

Take care.

Rosie's Mom

Question for Benny's Mom:

What chemo did Benny have?

Maxx had SRS. Was supposed to have 5 rounds of Carboplatin, but after round 2, found a skin met, so we switched to Doxorubicin. After Doxorubicin round 3, he was so sick, in the hospital for three days, I decided no more IV chemo. Going to CSU tomorrow to investigate metronomic protocol and alternative treatments.

Maxx was on Carboplatin when we discovered the skin met. So at that time, we immediately went to Doxorubicin.

We had the skin met removed, and we were lucky that we had significant, clear margins. We know we need a little bit of luck here, but like you said, "Tazzie", what matters most is quality. It has been almost 4 weeks since his last (and final) chemo and I can honestly say that he just recently is finally back to himself. So I'm not taking any chances with any more IV chemo.

There's actually a little more to this... After each and every chemo, after he came out of what I call the "chemo doldrums" from days 2 - 7, on about day 10, he'd spike a fever, was depressed, and became inappetant all over again; and after each chemo, these symptoms got worse and worse until this last one landed him in the hospital for three days. Doctors said it's not a typical chemo reaction, but for Maxx, it was typical. The doctors kept saying "oh, he must have eaten something bad" or "this must be something totally unreleated"... but the timing is such that the pattern was obvious. Happened five out of five times, didn't ever happen before, and so far, knock on wood, hasn't happened since.

LOL, Maxx apparently didn't read the chapter on typical chemo reactions... 🙂