About

Meet Holly! Holly will be 8 years old in February. Holly didn’t have the best start in life as she spent her first 8 months living outside. An elderly couple purchased her from a breeder. Shortly thereafter the wife fell and broke her hip. Holly was banished to the outside where she remained until the weather started to become too cold. At that time, Holly was turned over to rescue and adopted by her two mommies. She has several fursiblings and is very very loved. Needless to say, she has never looked back!

Holly went to the vet for her annual checkup about a month ago. All was good except some minor arthritis in her hips. Not bad for an almost 8 year old! It wasn’t major so the vet said to just start her on glucosamine for now.

Fast forward to a few weeks later when she started limping, favoring her left front leg. We thought maybe it was from playtime with her siblings since she was feeling more energetic from the glucosamine, but it didn’t get any better. On Christmas we noticed her leg shaking, and a bump on her wrist. So back to the vet she went. Xray this time.

To our surprise, our vet found a giant mass in her tricep. Like, taking over the whole muscle. Forget the tiny *whatever* on her wrist. Our girl has a giant invasive tumor in her upper arm that was not there a month ago. 

A few days later she went in for a biopsy so we can see what we’re dealing with. They have narrowed it down to either histiocytic sarcoma or hemangiosarcoma in her left front leg. Our vet removed as much of the tumor as he could, but it is intertwined in her tricep, therefore he could not get all of it. Off to the oncologist we went a few days later.

Holly has a very aggressive tumor as her Mitotic count is sky high at over 100. The oncologist stated that she has never come across a level this high before as the count is usually under 5 and up to 20 for aggressive forms. Her immunohistochemistry was ordered on her biopsy from last week to differentiate between whether Holly has histiocytic sarcoma or hemangiosarcoma. She had new 3-view chest x-rays done as well as bloodwork, urinalysis, and an ultrasound which were all negative for signs of the cancer spreading at this time. She will be having her front left leg amputated this week. Once the immunohistochemistry is back we will know how to proceed regarding follow up Chemotherapy after the amputation.

New posts can be found on the “Notes From Holly” page of this site as Holly begins her journey as a new tripawd and hopefully cancer free.

5 thoughts on “About”

    1. I’ms sooo happys to hear that you enjoys my blogger! I could use alls of the supports and loves that anyone has to shares with me. Please feel free to shares the link to mys blogger, here it is:

  1. Awww sweet Holly. I fell in love with you the second I saw your adorable photo!

    I’m glad all Holly.s preliminary work-ups came out good! Holly is clearly a stong gal and that plays in her favor! And she clearly has two hoomans who are really strong advocates for her and love her deeply!! 🙂

    And btw, statistics, “reports”, etc don’t mean much around here. Every dog is different and no dog pays attention to “medical jargon” like that!

    Looking forward ro your updates. Let us know if you jave questions, okay? We are roght here by your side.

    Hugs

    Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!

    1. Hi Ellober2,

      Thank you for your messages. Holly used her “Notes From Holly” page (or as she called it her “blogger” page) to keep everyone updated on her progress. The write up you found and read/responded to is on the “About” page, which was our first post for her about her diagnosis and condition, above. So your comments were absolutely appropriate for that page, please don’t feel bad for responding to our “about” post. As requested I am going to delete the first post you sent. I do want you to know that even though we lost our sweet Holly today, we are going to continue in the group to support others that are going through this with their furbabies. This is a wonderful group. Many people shared treatment and recovery information with us and gave us so much support with Holly, we want to continue to do the same for others.

      I’m sorry to hear that you and your furbaby are going through all of this and that his mitotic rate was so high at 38. I am hoping that the radiation will work well for him. Prior to knowing what type of cancer Holly had, we did initially research chemotherapy and radiation options. From the information we found, for those with the option of radiation treatment, the results seemed very positive. You and your boy can get through this! Keep fighting, never lose hope, and give him lots of hugs and kisses. <3

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