Rilley's Story to be Featured on Television

Yes, you read that right, Rilley's story is going to be featured on Discovery Channel Canada's daily science and technology program Daily Planet.  A camera crew will be following us down to Minneapolis to capture everything as it unfolds.  (Although we expect everything to go smoothly.)  The story will include interviews with the director of the Tumor Lab at the University of Minnesora, Dr. John Ohlfest and Rilley's surgeon, Dr. Elizabeth Pluhar.  This will give everyone a detailed explanation of what his treatment entails and hopefully it will convey a better sense of why we are making the long trek.  Once we know an air date for the item, we will post it here.

In other news:  Rilley's has added to his wardrobe!



Rilley with his new hooded coat.  He doesn't look too impressed, but it will keep him warm during the trip!

Sara and the girls went shopping this evening to get Rilley a new winter coat.  They want to make sure that he is nice and warm after his surgery.  It even has a hood so his shaved head will stay warm on the trip home.

Here are some interesting facts:

• Rilley is the last dog to be accepted into the Meningioma clinical trial at the Ohlfest Brain Tumor Lab. (Update: This fact was true at the time of the original post Oct. 28, 2010, but since then, whenever additional funding - grants, donations, etc. - has been received other dogs have been enrolled.)
• To date, he is also the only Canadian dog to be included in this particular trial.
• This study is being conducted to study the use of vaccines derived from Rilley's own tumour as a post surgical treatment to aid in curing the cancer.
• Positive results from some of the research done at the Brain Tumor Lab have prompted the Masonic Cancer Center at the University of Minnesota to begin recruiting for human trials for the treatment of specific types of brain tumours.
• Tumour and Tumor are the Canadian and American spellings of the same word.  So, no, we haven't been misspelling the word.  We use "Tumour" as the noun describing the mass in Rilley's head and "Tumor" when we are referring to the name of Dr. Ohlfest's clinic.