I had just started back to school in August despite my overwhelming desire not to. The first days back at work were extremely difficult. I spent the first day in tears thinking about how every second I spent at work was one less second I got to spend with Abby. I had called place, after place, and gotten dead end after dead end and I was starting to resign myself to the fact that we would probably only have her a few more months if that. However, one day on my lunch break I recieved a call from Dr. Michael Nolan of Colorado State and suddenly a slight glimmer of faith was renewed in me.
I had originally contacted CSU about a clinical trial they had posted. Abby was not eligible, however, the girl running the trial knew that several cases of cancer, specifically like Abby had been successfully treated at CSU, and so she forwarded my information on to Dr. Nolan.
He had called orginally because he though Abby might be a good fit for a special type of radiation called stereotactic radiation. Many different things I'd read on the internet refered to this radiation as "surgery without a knife." However, after some discussion he decided that it would probably not be a good option for Abby as she had already had so much radiation. I was crushed, until he mentioned that the surgeons at CSU had seen many different cases similair to Abbys and that they might be able to help. He made no promises but asked that I send her CT scans to him for him to show the surgeons.
I contacted NC State and waited very impatiently for them to get the scans to CSU, and for the call that I prayed would change our circumstances. Finally the call came through and it seemed my prayers were answered. He said that the surgeons at CSU felt that the could get all of the tumor based on the scans. However, there was a very big if attached to that claim.
Since Abby had already had so much radiation, it was necessary to wait at least three weeks before surgery. And due to this we ran the risk of her tumor growing to the point that surgery was no longer necessary. He said that at the end of the three weeks, we would need to have another scan done to see if surgery was still an option. It was a real possibility that surgery might not even be possible then, but still I had to hold out hope.
In the weeks in between we waited rather anxiously. My fear that the tumor was growing beyond help increased every day, yet I refused to push out all hope. But Abby's condition was slowly starting to worsen. As the tumor grew it put more and more pressure on her eye, causing her third eyelid to protrude. Her eyelid was slowly growing across her eye and looking worse and worse.
One evening, while my husband was at work, I noticed Abby starting to twitch. Her jaw would suddenly have tremors that she couldn't control. It appeared that the seizures the doctor at NC State had warned about had started. Even though they didn't appear immediately life threatening since it was just her jaw shaking, I was really frightened. Paniced I call my mom and she rushed over to go with me to take Abby to the emergency vet. After describing what had happened, they agreed that it did in fact seem she was having seizures and they asked that I leave her for the night so they could get her on a strong dose of phenbarbital to stop the seizures. The doctor on call said that he was afraid tha this meant that the tumor was pressing into her brain. My heart felt like it had broken into a thousand pieces all over again.
She spent the night at the hospital and then started on her new meds. She was now on about 14 pills a day between medicene and supplements. Her new meds made her extremely groggy and she stumbled around for the first few days. My husband and I had started to doubt our decision to get the second CT done, because it seemed pointless.
A few days later, I was struck with another surge of hope. There had to be a chance, and holding onto that hope had been what had gotten me this far. After a bit of coaxing, I convinced my husband that we had to get the second CT. That we had to know that in the end we'd done everything we could for her. He reluctantly agreed and we scheduled it for the next week, when her three weeks were up. And for the next few days, I held my breath, hoping against hope that we would get good news.
