Thank You for Your Love and Support

Words can not express eloquently enough my gratitude to Jo for donating her CD earnings to Charlie's cancer fund and to all of you who bought music to support us.  I am also so incredibly touched by those of you who very generously made anonymous donations (you know who you are and you are truly amazing). Thank you from the bottom of Charlie's and my heart. 

Here is the game plan so you can know what you contributed to and know how much you are helping us out.

First of all Charlie had a very large tumor removed from his front left leg and the tumor was so large that in order to get the cleanest margins possible (meaning cutting enough tissue and skin away to try to get all the cancer) the Dr. had to be very aggressive which left a nice open wound that needed to heal before any additional treatments could proceed.  We have been in the healing process for the last month and a half. He started out with a large bandage over his leg like this

 and couldn't be left alone because he kept trying to eat the bandage off (and actually succeeded twice which was horrible and disgusting as he ate his skin) so we took him lots of places with us like to Home Depot

Then after about 3 plus weeks of the bandage it was time to remove it so that it could scab up (yuck) and he came home like this and could finally wear his cone so he wouldn't lick it (he couldn't wear the cone before because his neck was still healing).

Gross, right?  After weeks and weeks of waiting it went from above to this...

To eventually this...

 

 You can hardly see the sore :)

Now Charlie's leg is finally healed up and he is ready to start chemotherapy.  We have decided that radiation may not be the way to go with Charlie's cancer as the mast cell tumors that he grows may continue to appear and he will need additional tiny surgeries to remove them.  Radiation is more of a spot treatment method where as chemo treats his whole system.

As of now his plan is as follows:  For the next 4 weeks starting this Friday Jan. 11 Charlie will go in every Friday to receive Chemo. I will drop him off in the morning and pick him up in the afternoon. It will be administered with an IV.  Some dogs get sick and other dogs don't get too sick from the chemo, we will just have to wait and see.  After his first 4 treatments he then starts on an every other week schedule and receives 4 more treatments over the course of 8 weeks. So grand total he has 8 chemo therapy appointments over the next 12 weeks.

I am now 36 week pregnant:) We will be trying to cram these 4 treatments in before Baby Girl makes her debut and if she comes early then I guess we will do our best to make it all happen.  I know we can get through all this at one time, I just have to take it one day at a time.

By the way, Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching School is amazing. They have the best staff, the best knowlege and the best doctors.  I love our surgeon Dr. Kendra Hearon, she is my new favorite person!!! She has saved Charlie's life and for that I will always love her very dearly.