Murphy's Treatment Plan

If you're offended easily, please read no further. Don't know what sort of graphic language will be expressed in this post and I have no intention of editing it.

A lot of you know me from our walk from Austin to Boston ( http://2dogs2000miles.org/ ) some of our new friends don't. Then I was walking in memory of Malcolm whom I lost to cancer. Now I'm just a father who's desperately trying to save his other boy's life from this dreadful disease. I've made the decision to make a documentary of this latest chapter of our lives and I'll post more about this as it develops.

It's already a hard time of year from me since it was this time in 2005 when Malcolm was struggling and the metastatic tumor in his lungs was overtaking him. But this isn't about me so let me bring you up to speed about Murphy.

I posted about his prognosis. We don't understand why the first round of radiation failed... I have a theory but for now it's academic and we can't afford time for talk. The tumor has reached critical mass and if allowed to grow any further, it'll shut off his ability to breath through his snout. If that happens he'll have no quality of life.

The recommendation of the oncology team at CSU is that we have to act immediately and hit it hard with everything they've got. Their radiation plan is 30 grays administered over three days, the maximum tolerable dose.

After that we'll look into chemo as an adjunct therapy. Thanks to everyone who posted to our wall about human cancer drug trials - Erich is compiling a list from your links so I can send emails out to the principal investigators.

The potentially catastrophic downside to this plan is there's a 5% chance Murphy will succumb to massive radiation alone in a few weeks or months.

"What's your decision?" Dr. Withrow asked me Friday.

Having sat through 30 minutes of if, ands, & buts - all I could think about was Star Trek. Strange since I'm not a Trekkie but when he said the first round of radiation merely stunned the tumor, I thought of the phaser and it's two settings: Stun and Vaporize. At least that's how I remembered it since the last time I saw an episode was probably in the 80s. Perhaps we didn't hit it hard enough the first time and the Variant Trilogy machine was on the wrong setting.

I don't know how much time passed after he asked the question - all the options and the probabilities of their outcomes cycled through my head like a centrifuge.

"What are we going to do?" he asked again.

"Let's kill this mother f***er"

Murphy Has Cancer

Looking at murphy's blood stained snout from the biopsy that was performed some hours ago, I could ask why. Why give him cancer, my boy who walked across the country for all others who suffer from this horrible disease. It may seem a cruel irony that just over a month after its completion he was diagnosed.

I choose not to ask because the answer is as unknowing as it is extraneous. What I felt when I awakened this morning was truly blessed. God's love for us is so great that he held the cancer at bay until after our mission was completed . He got us from Austin to Boston safely fulfilling his promise.

From what the vets said yesterday, nasal cancer can come in several varieties so we're awaiting the results of the biopsy. While I am still digesting all of the information and articles that were provided to me it seems the 'gold standard' of care is radiation therapy over a three week period. The prognosis of nasal cancer especially caught this early is promising even though the tumor has invaded part of Murphy's bone.

I want to thank the staff at Colorado State University Vet School for taking good care of Mr. Murphy yesterday, especially Drs. Woorley and Venable and Jennifer who's a fourth year student.

I'll post regular updates here... puppy up!