The Final Trip: What a drive!

Have Winnie will travel.
Rilley's Winnie-the-Pooh has accompanied him on every trip to Minneapolis.

This is the first post detailing Rilley's final visit to the University of Minnesota.  The trip ended up being quite hectic and left little time for me to update the blog while we were away.  Now that I've had a day to recover, I can begin by writing about the drive to Minneapolis.  One thing that made it interesting was that it was just me, travelling alone with Rilley and the kids, as Sara had to stay behind to work.  This proved to make everyday quite hectic as I always had to plan everything around them...no running out to the store and leaving them in a hotel room alone.  Sorry Rilley, I can't really trust you to be an effective babysitter!

Tuesday:
The kids and I left home around noon and drove the first six hour stretch to Kalamazoo, Michigan where I had booked us a room at the Best Western Plus.  This is the same hotel we had stayed in when the four of us made the trip last May.  They not only accept pets, but for a regular hotel they have easy access to the outside.  Whenever Rilley needed out, there was a door at the bottom of the stairs that I could use to get out and back in.  So no waiting on an elevator and no need to make our way to the lobby every time.  This night the kids discovered their new favourite pizza, the "All Meaty" from Jets, a local pizzeria whose ad was in the room.  The pizza was quite good and given Rilley's constant drooling, I think he really, really wanted a bite...sorry buddy.

Elizabeth and Rilley getting comfortable.

Wednesday:
We got up to watch The Early Show as I had posted about the last time.  However, if anyone else did watch the show they will have noticed that Drs. Ohlfest and Pluhar were nowhere to be seen.  As is inherent in television news, something can always come up and that is just what happened...another story bumped theirs. However, The Early Show producers have assured Dr. Pluhar that the story will air and once they provide her with a new air date she will pass it along and I, in turn, will post it here.

Rilley enjoying the ride.

We were on the road again around 9:30am to complete the remaining 10 hours of driving to Minneapolis.  I had checked the weather prior to leaving the hotel and took note of the high winds expected as we got closer to Lake Michigan.  In the end, the winds were not a major concern but rather the snow storm that we hit beginning in Belvidere, Illinois and lasting well into Wisconsin.  It felt like the middle of February!  Some of the road conditions did make the girls nervous, but fortunately for us, after a few hours of winter driving, the weather, as well as the roads, cleared right up.

Just after entering Wisconsin.

The same state...a few hours later.

I must admit for a lot of the drive I almost forgot that Rilley was in the Jeep at all.  He really seems to have taken to travelling.  We had set up his bed on a special "dog hammock" to help keep him from falling into the space between the back and front seats.

Katherine and her favourite pup!

Around 5:30pm we arrived in the Twin Cities.  Here I also booked us into the same hotel as the last trip...the Marriott Residence Inn in the Minneapolis suburb of Eagan.   Just as the hotel in Kalamazoo, this hotel was picked because it has easy access to the outside for Rilley.

So, that about sums up the journey to Minneapolis. It was definitely more comfortable having one less person in the car, however it really felt strange travelling such a distance without Sara.

Thursday didn't turn out as expected...but we'll save that story until tomorrow.

Drs. Ohlfest and Pluhar on CBS's "The Early Show" tomorrow!

I just got word that Dr. John Ohlfest and Dr. Elizabeth Pluhar will be on CBS's "The Early Show" tomorrow!  They will be discussing the canine brain tumour study that Rilley has been participating in.  Too bad that we are still en route...perhaps our pup could've made a special guest appearance!

From what I understand the show is on at 7am...so sorry for the short notice, but they definitely deserve the attention.  I will try to catch it from the hotel room before we head out on the road again.

Hitting the open road one more time!!!!

We can't believe it's time to leave for our final journey to Minneapolis!

I'm writing this just before I pack up the laptop for our final trip to Minneapolis for Rilley's last exam and MRI. Having done this trip three times now, I've wised up and am not attempting a straight through, 16 hour drive in either direction.  Just as last time, we will be stopping for the night in Kalamazoo, about 6 hours into the trip, leaving the rest of the drive for Wednesday.

The schedule is pretty tight, so this may be my last post until we return this coming weekend, however I will endeavour to update it along the way.

Roy.

MAJOR MILESTONE: Rilley has made it to one year!

Rilley, left,  just after surgery one year ago and today, right.

One year ago today Rilley underwent brain surgery to remove the meningioma that was threatening his life.  This was the first step in his amazing recovery and thanks to the groundbreaking work being done at the University of Minnesota he is still with us today.  By the time we return from his fourth and final visit to Minneapolis this month we will have driven almost 12000km (close to 7500 miles) but seeing the smiles on our daughters faces whenever they see him has made it all worthwhile.

Rilley is celebrating this day in his usual style...lying around the house.  Yeah, high energy, I know.  I don't think he realizes just how far he's come.  Just look at the pictures above...his shaved head and stitches which earned him the nickname "bacon-head" because of the colouring and the one that was taken today where he looks like his old self.  The only indication of the fact that he had surgery is the slight black line in the white highlight on his head.

While we observed this special date in our household today, over the coming weeks we will be celebrating this monumental milestone on the blog.  It will be getting a facelift and we plan on creating special posts where we will look back over the events and people from the past year and provide updates on the last trip for his final exam and MRI.

Cancer patient meets dog receiving same treatment as Rilley

Yesterday I came across an interesting story done by Boua Xiong of KARE-TV in Minneapolis.  It focuses on a very unique meeting that took place at the University of Minnesota .  A patient enrolled in the human trials had the opportunity to meet one of the dogs enrolled in the same trial as Rilley.  John Huls was diagnosed with a brain tumour two years ago and is receiving a treatment similar to the one that Rilley had undergone.  He got to meet Piper, a 14 year old golden retriever at the University's Small Animal Clinic...a place Rilley's gotten to know very well.  Here's the story:


I had come across this story on another blog, www.dogcancerblog.com written by Dr. Damien Dressler out of Hawaii.  I haven't explored his site completely but he seems to have a lot of good resources for those whose dog's have been diagnosed with cancer.

One other link that I found on his site could be of benefit for those who have come across our blog while looking for answers.  It is a list of veterinary oncolological clinical trials maintained by the Veterinary Cancer Society.  The link is www.vetcancersociety.org/clinical-research.html and I will add it to the "Related Links" section at the bottom of the page.

Lastly, tomorrow is November 4th, a very significant date around our house as it will mark the one year anniversary of Rilley's surgery!  It's hard to believe that it has been that long already...a theme that may end up recurring throughout tomorrow's special post.

11 Months and Still Here!

"As long as there is food, I'm stickin' around!"

What more is there to say?  Rilley is doing well 11 months after beginning his treatment at the University of Minnesota.  Yes, it's been nearly a year since our first 16 hour drive to Minneapolis, his life-saving surgery and the beginning of the experimental vaccines. We have roughly one more month to go before we pack up once again and head out on the road for his last follow up exam and MRI.

So there you have it!  Our shortest blog entry to date...our 90th post too!

The wonders of mail order medication!

The cost of Rilley's medication has always been a concern, especially given the fact that he receives his Levetiracetam (a.k.a. Keppra), three times a day and will most likely continue on that for the rest of his life.  Something that we expect will be a very long time.  We have been spending on average $1.83 per pill by buying them from our local pharmacy in lots of 60 pills.  Today we received our first order of capsules from a pharmacy in the U.S. that not only costs just $0.75 per pill (including shipping, taxes and duty) but is also custom tailored so that the dosage is much more accurate.  This is something that isn't available to us here, we've been having to use the closest available human dose.  So not only does this allow us to save money, but by knowing that the medication is delivered in a precise manner it puts us more at ease in light of the recent incidents of possible breakthrough seizures.

Check out the size of bottle that came:

Yes, it's a legit bottle, I just digitally removed some personal info.

No, that is not a child's hand, this bottle is quite large and contains 270 capsules.  That's enough to last Rilley 90 days (almost three months)! Or as he would think of it...270 Pill Pockets!!!!

Best of all, within two days of ordering it is delivered right to the door!