Winnie on wheels keeps rolling after lifesaving cancer treatment at WSU
New university findings highlight potential implications for dogs, cancer, and veterinary practice.
The tumor, later identified as a nephroblastoma, develops from embryonic kidney tissue cells that improperly grow along the spinal cord.
An 8-month-old puppy named Winnie is back home with her family in Spokane after undergoing surgery and completing 20 radiation treatments for a rare spinal tumor at Washington State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital.
The American bully now gets around in a custom wheelchair after the cancerous mass damaged her spinal cord, but it has hardly slowed her down.
There was never a time where she was in pain.
At this point, she’s been not walking longer than she ever walked, so she doesn’t even care,” said Jamie Kearney, who co-owns Winnie with her fiancée, Keith Thulon.
The couple first noticed something was wrong when Winnie began walking strangely and started losing control of her back legs.
“She kind of walked like a drunken sailor.
She was just stumbling all over the place,” said Jamie, who just happens to work as an occupational therapy assistant at a rehabilitation facility for spinal cord patients in Spokane.
After the episodes continued, Winnie’s primary veterinarian referred her to WSU, where an MRI revealed a large malignant tumor on her spinal cord.
“It’s almost like they grow a little kidney there, but it’s not functional,” said neurology resident Dr.
At WSU, a team of specialty veterinary surgeons performed a procedure known as a laminectomy to remove as much of the tumor as possible.
The report adds to ongoing university-led research relevant to veterinary medicine, animal health, and clinical decision-making.
Source university website: Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine
https://vetmed.wsu.edu/winnie-on-wheels-keeps-rolling-after-lifesaving-cancer-treatment-at-wsu/
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