June Maidens

In early June of this year our beloved then 6 yr old male boxer Thomas was dianosed with a very aggressive glioma, we were told there was no treatment available for this particular tumour and basically take him home, give him lots of TLC until his time was up. Loving him as much as we did we were not going to give in and after lots of internet research we found a veterinary oncologist who had trained in the US and was working closely with a scientific laboratory here in Australia who were developing and trialing a new therapy called minicells which with a limited amount of chemotherapy drug targeted directly the cancerous cells of the tumour. As Thomas was losing weight at the rate of 1kg per day and by that stage had lost 7 kgs of his normal weight, we put him into the program, together with peg feeding, Prednisone and medication to stop or reduce any seizures he responded exceedingly well to the treatment. Scans at 5 weekly intervals confirmed that the tumour had ceased growing and he was having an excellent quality of life, although he was a little slower than he had been initially. He never lost his hair, was in excellent condition and his blood and urine tests were perfect. As you know normal chemo does have adverse effects. Unfortunately on 11th October the tumour which had become resistant to the dosage being used in the minicells started to grow agressively and he started to have seizures once again and we knew the time had come for him to leave us, he was not in any fit state to wait for changes to be made to the minicell treatment. He had been so brave undergoing the treatment and so willingly took his medication and peg feeding which he initially had for two months, it would have been unfair for us to let him now suffer. The final results showed that many of the tumour cells had actually died from the effects of the minicell treatment. Perhaps if the dosage had been increased or altered so as the tumour did not become resistant to it then who knows. Anyway our brave and corageous Thomas has in his way given science a lead in the treatment of these brain tumours for the future whereas up until now there has been no effective treatment available. We hope that it will lead to a cure for this dreaded disease sometime in the not too distant future. In the meantime we are coping our best with our great loss, it is hard to look about and he is no longer with us but the joy and love and affection he brought into our lives will live with us forever. To all of you dog owners out there who have a dog suffering with cancer just don't give in until your pet no longer has quality of life.
June