Gozer's Story

On January 3, 2015, our dog Gozer - just a week and a half shy of his 10th birthday - suffered a seizure. We brought him to our emergency vet, who ran lots of bloodwork and found nothing unusual. Given his advanced age, they noted the likelihood of a brain tumor causing the seizure and presented us with some options. Gozer is our baby, and while we didn't want him to suffer at all, we wanted to know more and figure out his best option.

We chose to get an MRI for him from the UMN VMC, which confirmed the presence of a brain tumor. We were DEVASTATED, and planning to have him put down because we weren't willing to put him through the "standard" treatment of surgery/radiation/chemo. ..soon thereafter, Dr. Pluhar invited Gozer into her clinical study for glioma.

What an incredible opportunity! What an incredible outcome! After BRAIN SURGERY (which turned out to be far less invasive than expected - he was sent home the next day!), Gozer began receiving a vaccine made from his own tumor cells. In his case, the vaccine has had no noticeable side effects. What's more, his last MRI showed no evidence of tumor regrowth at all!

So here we are, nearly 6 months out from surgery, and he is his happy, silly old self. Who knows how much time we may have left with Gozer, but what I do know is that Dr. Pluhar has given him far more time than we thought we had...and GOOD time, without side effects from invasive therapies. Gozer is so happy to see Dr. Pluhar when we bring him for checkups/vaccines - she gives him all kinds of love and good petting. In fact - the whole staff has been phenomenal. Patient and kind and professional with us, and absolutely sweet and wonderful to Gozer.

As if that's not enough - we get the added benefit of knowing our dog is contributing to the health of others by participating in this study! What an incredible opportunity. What an incredible veterinary program!

The attached pics are Gozer a couple months before surgery and then post-surgery.