The Drama of 2008

Well, this year has begun with plenty of drama. Let's hope we are just getting it out of the way early!

My last post was just prior to a trip to the doctor to get my MRI results, which was the beginning of the first drama. The MRI did show the suspected (medial) meniscal tear. It also had a (lateral) surprise. There is a tumor in the head of my fibula (2cm x2cm) just below the knee. Before I get into the details, I want to point out that my tumor is probably not malignant. I went to the orthopedic surgeon, and he took x-rays, scheduled a biopsy, ordered a bone scan, got the results of the bone scan, canceled the biopsy, and referred me to an orthopedic oncologist. There are only 3 orthopedic oncologists in northern California, so it is kind of hard to get in to see them. I'm not sure if it is good or bad news when an oncologist reviews your records and accepts you as a patient, but I have been accepted by the clinic at UCSF. They suspect that I have a Giant Cell Tumor (GCT) which is locally aggressive but rarely spreads elsewhere. The bone scan showed that my tumor is fairly active metabolically, which is why the ortho canceled the biopsy and sent me to the specialist, but doesn't appear to be as aggressive as a cancer. Following the appointment with the specialist, the first week in March, I will have a much better idea of what kind of tumor I have and what the treatment will be. I will need surgery to remove the tumor and bone grafting to fill the hole, which I expect to have by the middle of March. I have no idea how big a deal all of that is and how long the recovery will be.

Concurrently, we started to notice that something was wrong with our bad dog, Jack. We had been very worried about him, because he was terribly ill and had lost significant amounts of weight (muscle). He was heading downhill rapidly, when we found out that he is diabetic. We were thrilled that he had something treatable. Jack has been on insulin for 9 days now and is doing much better. He has even gained back a pound and is up to his old misbehaving tricks. Jack doesn't seem to mind the twice daily insulin shots, and even puts up with the blood glucose monitoring. He'd rather not get his lip pricked for the blood sample, but he really will do anything for food. When I asked the vet, he told me that if left untreated, Jack was days to weeks from dying. Wow. Even if it had been been caught later, he would still have been treatable, but he was a pretty sick dog.

So, yes, we have our share of drama around here.