A Year Later

As posted here earlier, our Clark was diagnosed with bone cancer, a day after his 3rd birthday it was confirmed. We prepared ourselves for what we thought was the inevitable. Deciding that keeping him whole and not going with radical treatments that would likely kill him if the disease didn't was most important. I believe early detection was key. Eve's hawk eyes spotted a problem with Clarky's gate when I couldn't tell anything being wrong. Usually, this is first spotted after the bone breaks, which almost always results in the dog being put down. Thanks to our "Fairy Dogmother", she was right on top of it before it got too far along.

So, Eve started him on a natural-pathic regimine of herbs, supplements and vitamins. Combined with exercise, lots of love and affection (and a special spot on our bed @ night!). We made a couple of trips to the beach. To watch him run free through the surf was a wonderful sight, he truly enjoyed every moment of it. So did we and secretly hoped that this wouldn't be his last trip.

Even with chemo, amputation and other "traditional" treatments we were given no guarantees, a year "maybe". This same bone cancer affects humans and is usually a death sentence. It was very important to us to keep him comfortable and make his remaining days as pain free as possible and just love him as much as we could with the short time we had left together. Every time I looked @ his puppy pictures my heart ached, like my chest were ripped open.

Much to our surprise he responded well. I took him on supervised trips outside so he could get some fresh air and move around a little bit. He sure looked good and it was hard to get him to slow down because he wanted to run. I could tell he felt good too (much to our unease when he'd cut loose running!). We attributed some of that to the pain meds, but he never gave much indication that it bothered him, other than stopping to lick @ his front legs. Summer came and he was still doing very well. Eve took him to the holistic vet where we got his supplement plan from, and he was shocked to see how well Clark was doing. His leg showed no signs of a tumor, disfigured or warm to the touch, nor was he favoring it.

Eve then took him to the Wazzu vet for radiation treatment in August on the tumor itself to help with pain. Much to our (and theirs) surprise they told us that his cancer was "resolving" so he did not need further treatment other than what we've already been doing. It had not spread beyond his leg into his lungs or other organs and you could see the lesion had lessened significantly from his original diagnosis. The bone has a much more normal shape to it. Today you cannot tell there is a problem.

Here we are now January 2011. We thought for sure he would never see last summer, let alone the new year. I recall the look on Eve's face when she told me about Clarks cancer, tears flowed over her devastation. I felt her pain and it made me angry considering what we've already been through with Lewis. Like a bruising heart punch, it hit hard.

He's our miracle boy. He is one of five known dogs to have a spontaneous reversal of osteo-sarcoma, according to the Wazzu vets.

Here he is, with us today. Our watcher, our guardian, our safe keeper; begging in the kitchen for a dab of peanut butter and jam. Curling up in front of the fire place on a cold wintery night, "asking" before jumping onto the bed. All the things we never thought we'd see again. It cost a great deal of money, but it's an investment that has returned a huge profit. We gambled on love and it paid off like we never believed it could.

Our boy is alive and well again. He is cancer free and running with the same vigor and abandon that he once had.

We are free of the grief we were facing with the idea of losing him so young. Now, we have a chance to see him grow old and gray. This is winning our lottery. It's been a year now, Clark turns four this month. I think he's due for a really big celebration. So are we, followed soon by another trip to the Oregon Coast with our boys, Lewis and Clark.