It's been a hectic week...well, month, really. I have more news to deliver. I hesitate to say, since its bitten me in the ass before, but it seems that we have some good news.

So last week Dakota had his CT Scan and the vet sent his biopsy to run some stains to see which Spindle Cell Sarcoma it is. A few days after that the Oncologist called to say that she and the Radiologist reviewed Dakota's CT and found no evidence that the cancer had spread to any of his organs (yet, anyway) nor any at his surgery site. A few days later we took him in for a check up and to find that the stains came back as.

Apparently they had run two tests checking the tumor for Malignant Melanoma, as it is the most deadly of the possible cancers and Dakota had a very high risk rate being an older, large breed, black dog with dark mouth pigmentation, not to mention that Melanoma is the most common mouth cancer in dogs. Both tests came back negative for Malignant Melanoma so the doctor is 90-95% sure he does NOT have Malignant Melanoma but instead has the much less deadly Fibrosarcoma.

I'm unsure if I went into detail before, but I will now just to emphasize how preferable Fibrosarcoma is to Malignant Melanoma. Malignant Melanoma is generally aggressive and very quickly, and usually, metastasizes to the other organs, specifically the lungs or lymph nodes. Because of this it has a guarded to poor prognosis and a general survival rate of 6 months.
Fibrosarcoma, on the other hand, has a lower rate to metastasize (approximately 20% compared to Melanoma's 80%) but is more locally aggressive (meaning the tumor is more likely to grow back). Its survival time is better than Melanoma, as well, and has a guarded prognosis due to its locally aggressive nature.

So, Fibrosarcoma isn't great, but its better than Malignant Melanoma. Given that Dakota has been pretty lucky as far as progression, I think he has a good chance to recover. The vet wants to start him on radiation next week, which he thinks will probably completely eliminate the cancerous cells.

So starting Wednesday, Dakota is supposed to be going in for 12 radiation treatments - 3 days a week for 4 weeks. Each treatment requires him to stay their overnight and be picked up the next morning, which breaks my heart (but probably breaks his more :C). The vet says that after that's all done we should have significant proof that he's better within a year.

So, here's hoping for the best :) Again, thanks for all the kind words and help and all that. I know I've been slow with my obligations, I kind of can't focus when under stress :\ but now that things are looking up, I should be better.

Still raising money for the radiation and whatnot: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/794301/