Adventures in Dog Radiation Therapy

Yesterday morning sweet Buster crossed the Rainbow Bridge at age 15 years and 2 months. His amputation gave him three more years to enjoy his time on earth and for me to enjoy it with him. He experienced rapid deterioration of mobility this week that might have been a return of nerve cancer but we will never know for sure. Courage and best wishes to everyone in this community making hard choices for their dogs. Buster made the most of his years on three legs and was very happy until near the end.

Buster has had a summer filled with a further health scare called autoimmune hemolytic anemia. It was rough for a couple of weeks. But he seems to be bouncing back and here he is at the farm i have moved to part time out in virginia. He turned 14 this spring and with his health issues i didn’t know if he’d make it out there with me, but he did.

For Buster’s fans on this site he is still doing great. He’s a tripawd for 1.5 years. He is still on daily maintenance chemo to hopefully prevent a return of nerve cancer. His vets and oncologists are still amazed at how he is doing. High energy. Doing great. We are lucky.

Buster is doing very well. We’re at the one year anniversary of his cancer diagnosis, and just a few weeks short of his one year amputation anniversary. To this date I don’t know if we are beating nerve cancer or delaying nerve cancer. But we’ve been going all out, and ten days ago I took Buster on a long weekend vacation to the Shenandoah so he could smell all the smells and have a good time out of the city. And he did. Love this little guy. This website was such an amazing resource a year ago, and is still.

So, it’s a new year and it’s been a while since I posted. Buster is 7.5 months as a tripawd, and about 8 months since his nerve sheath tumor diagnosis. He is doing really well. After regular chemo, which wrapped up in November, he is now on a very low dose daily chemo called chlorambucil. He may be on it for the rest of his life. He has stopped losing fur from doxorubicin (which is done), and he after some more modest GI distress toward the end of chemo (not at all regular or severe), he is now back to normal as far as I can tell. Continued thanks to this whole community for all the support over the past year.