Today Gracie's Cancer Story Website got a special email from Toby's family in New Hampshire. Here's the story they shared about Toby's ongoing fight with histiocytic sarcoma.
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Found your blog while searching for info on Adriamycin +DTIC for treating histiocytic sarcoma in dogs.

Our dog, Toby, is a 7 year old Bernese Mountain Dog who wasdiagnosed with widely dispersed histiocytic sarcoma (actually, malignant histiocytosis) at the beginning of January of this year.  As you note, thistype of cancer is sadly common in Bernese Mountain Dogs.  He had lesionsin 4 different bony areas, plus his spleen and his lungs.

Toby’s been getting chemo for 7 months now.  He’sbeen on Prednisone from the start.  We started on CCNU, moved to Adriamycin after he had experienced some liver damage due to CCNU side effects,and starting tomorrow we’re adding DTIC to the Adriamycin.

For the past month or two his spleen and bone marrow havebeen clear of any disease.  So now, his major issue is the lesion in his lung.  We’re certainly hoping the Adriamycin + DTIC will help him…though for Toby’s particular cancer and its severity, it’s been clear to us from the beginning that this isn’t something he’s goingto recover from.  We just hope to extend his life as long as he’s enjoying himself.

Hearing that your vet oncology teams both recommended the Adriamycin + DTIC combination for histiocytic sarcoma in the lings wascertainly encouraging.  We’re hoping it’ll do Toby some good.

ANYhow, thanks for sharing Gracie’s story.  You’re doing a great thing by sharing it – More folks need to do this, so that people understand that a diagnosis of histiocytic sarcoma or even malignant histiocytosis isn’t an immediate death sentence.  There IS good,knowledgeable, oncology care available for four legged family members.

We're feeding Toby a homemade diet also.  We put it together in consultation with a board certified veterinary nutritionist,
with the idea of trying to get him to lose some weight. He's gained about 15 pounds since his diagnosis... why?  Cuz he's 
so good at "playing the cancer card", of course.  You know, one of the symptoms they tell you to watch out for in terms of 
disease progression is loss of appetite.  So, Toby hangs around the house one day, doesn't eat much the next (due to the lack 
of activity), and we're all panicked.  Break out the cottage cheese!  See if he'll eat a hotdog!!  Tempt him with some ricotta!!! 
It's pretty laughable, actually.  The weight is no good for him, but he seems to enjoy all the attention.

I really hope Gracie does well.   With the lesion restricted to just the one location, it sounds like she might have a chance atresolving the cancer completely.  I very much hope that’s the case.

 Thanks, and give Gracie some extra pets from me,

Peter - Mont Vernon, NH

Toby - aka "The Tobster"