On Day 16, I would say Tate was at about 40%. On Day 17, I’d say 85%. He popped up with the alarm, tail wagging, and resumed a lot of his routine behaviors. Plunked himself outside the bathroom door while I brushed my teeth, went completely around the block with no rests (okay, it’s a short block but still a milestone), wanted to play with his ball, pushed open the door to the garage to run out when he heard my car coming home. All while wagging his tail. A blue-ribbon day. A big change just that fast.
He tried walking over to Grandma’s but I made him come home, too far (0.6 mi). But we drove over and they were so happy to see each other! And Grandma did really, really good at holding back her tears. She may not have much memory left but she still has her great big heart. She knew better than to cry in front of Tate! I was so proud of her.
Now that we are past the amp, I’m back to researching histiocytic sarcoma. Now I know the stories of Harley, Barney in Texas, Ruthie, Tehya, Marley and Barney the collie. Thank you so much for sharing!
Another Tripawd blog (Toby) led me to Peter Moore at UC-Davis. It’s the best summary I could find, at: http://www.histiocytosis.ucdavis.edu/ (I think this jump is in the Resources but it would not link for me.) (BTW, it seems blogs show up in Google searches but not the forum?)
So the pathologist mentioned “curative” in reference to the amp, the surgeon said “Tate might enjoy a normal lifespan”, and the vet said “We may well have saved Tate’s life.” All very promising, as it appears he has “localized histiocytic sarcoma” and not “disseminated histiocytic sarcoma.” I am trying not to get my hopes up until we speak with the oncologist on Tuesday because I know how insidious those evil cancer cells can be. But I’ve realized, I’m kind of counting on this.
Just a couple other oddball observations. Tate’s started licking his bed or the carpet next to his paws. I guess they do this. The other thing is that Tate used to sneeze a lot when he got up in the morning, and he used to have a discharge from the corner of his eye a lot (eye boogers, to be descriptive about it.) Neither of these things is happening anymore. Very odd (to me). Not that I miss them.