It's a sweet sweet life livin' by the salty sea: Duke Update

Well Duke just approached the 6 month mark since his amputation ( more like 7 mo). Over the last 6 months Duke has far surpassed all of my expectations of what a 3 legged dog is suppose to be. He is simply amazing and well perfect! He has the heart of the champion. And when I couldn't put on a happy face for him he always put one on for me. I'll never forget the day we picked him up after his surgery. I was a mess, nothing but tears. Then out comes this 3 legged dog, my dog Duke, just wagging his tail and smiling from ear to ear. I'd like to say that I'd be smiling the next day after they amputated my leg, but then again I'd be lying. What a dog he is. We are blessed to have him in our family.

We figured we needed to celebrate his 6 month milestone. So we celebrated with a few new toys and increase in food! Since he hit the 6 month mark we took him in for a check up to see if the cancer had spread. His doctors had recommended this to us so obviously we did. Apparently with the type of cancer duke had the most likely of places for the cancer to spread would have been his chest and liver. So they took X-rays of this hips, chest, and lungs and did an abdominal ultrasound.
Andrew and I hadn't thought much about the appointment; we knew it needed to happen. We hadn't got ourselves worked up about anything and just viewed it as a normal routine appointment. Like Andrew said "It's not like we are going to cut off another one of his legs" Crass, but true....So anyway Duke had is appointment, which he wasn't happy about because he had to fast. The poor boy is hungry enough the last thing he wants to do is miss a meal!

I got a phone call a little after lunch on that Friday that said "good news"! There were no changes in his hips, lungs, chest, or liver since this last exam 6 months ago. Thank God! However, there were nodules on his spleen that had not been there the last time...ok so what does that mean....It means lets do a biopsy and run a cytology to make sure the cancer didn't spread there. So strange...because appartently that is a really unusual place for his type of cancer to spread. So they took a biopsy and told us it would probably be Tuesday before we had the results.

Ok so I tried not to freak out or get scared, but epic fail on my part. It's just par for the course right? Andrew kept his cool like he always does. We discussed it just a little bit just to prepared. We had already decided if it was cancer we would not elect to do a splenectomy (if it was an option); instead we would make Duke happy and comfortable for as long as we could.

Saturday evening rolled around and we check our email and to our surprise were the cytology results for Duke. Holding my breath Andrew read the report. Andrew said " no evident of neoplasia is present". Neoplasia! What does that mean?! Andrew sweetly tells me..It means he doesn't have cancer! Thank the Lord! Duke is cancer free in his spleen! We were soo relieved and so grateful!
His doctor would still like to do a complete blood panel on him just to make sure we've not missed anything. Which is fine by me. I'm still saying my prayers for Duke, but am extremely happy is cancer free. We just didn't want him to go through that again.

One big bummer though is that Duke's hair had just completely grown back! Now is belly is bare again. Poor boy. I say this in jest - a little shaved belly is no big deal....