Max is a 19 year old sheltie/ lab mix who was diagnosed with inoperable brain tumors in the spring of 2011. After some diagnostics (MRI and Spinal Tap) the neurologist determined that Max had meningiomas. One on his cerebral cortex and the other in the Pons area of his brain stem. After attempting to treat Max pallatively with prednisone and holistically through acupuncture and herbs he took a turn for the worse. Our neurologist had told us about Cyber Knife treatment. For some reason I kept thinking that this involved cutting poor little Max's head open and then zapping him with radiation. As luck would have it, I was talking with a woman and she told me she worked in a neurology wing of a hospital and they happened to have a cyber knife there! She told me it was completely non-invasive. I looked into it a little further and realized this was something we needed to look into. Cyber Knife is a completely non-invasive, pin-point accurate beam of radiation that is accurate to 2-3mm of it's target, meaning there are very minimal side effects, if any, as opposed to conventional radiation. We did get Max 10 hours away to the
Animal Specialty Center in Yonkers NY. We checked into the hotel and the next day we saw
Dr. Joseph who had already consulted with Dr. Bush at
Bush Veterinary Neurology Service. Max was checked out and then taken back for Mapping where they inserted 3 gold beads in his mouth pallet so that the cyber knife machine could triangulate where the tumors were and then zap them. Then we had a day off, and the next 3 days Max went in for cyber knife treatments. They did put him under for the treatments so he wouldn't move while he was being zapped. The treatments take about 1/2 hour per tumor and you can take your dog home with you after each treatment, but I opted to keep Max in the hospital over night, just in case anything happened, and so that I could attempt to catch up on my sleep. (He had been circling and crashing into things and flopping and I hadn't had more than maybe an hour of sleep in a row for a few weeks.) On Friday when they released him, he was walking straight, looking good and he did great on our ride home! Today (March 10, 2012), Max is doing fantastic! You'd never even know he had had brain tumors! He just got back from a 2.5 mile hike with his brothers and sister. He chased a jogger (or tried to until he was caught ), he wrestled with a puppy, and tried to go for a swim in the creek! I am still truly amazed at how well Cyber Knife worked for Max! We've talked to a number of other dogs (well the people they own) and they have all had some level of success or extreme success with the same treatment. Dr. Joseph told us about a dog who had come to see him years ago who was about 18 or 19 years old. She had Cyber knife treatments and responded very well to them. He said she had recently come back for a follow up treatment and she was now 24/25 years old and again she responded well! This gave us a lot of hope! This was definitely a decision I don't regret! It is truly amazing how happy, healthy and normal Max is today! We do monitor his blood regularly, and he still is on a very low dose of prednisone (10mg 1-2 x week as needed, still gets acupuncture, and is still on chinese herbs (I have a complete list on his blog) I've documented Max's recovery with videos and photos in case anyone wants to compare and see how their dog is doing to how Max looked and is doing today. His blog is
http://maxck.blogspot.com .
