Solo's Emergency Surgery Fundraiser

***UPDATE ON SOLO FROM BRIANNA***

Solo’s surgery was a success! The surgeon removed the visible mass and reconstructed Solo’s abdominal wall with a porcine collagen-based implant (kosher pork). Solo spent one night in the hospital. Late yesterday, as I was going over discharge instructions with the nurse, he started to turn and wriggle and pressed the hard edge of the cone into my leg. It took me a minute to realize…

He hadn’t even been discharged from the hospital, and he was alerting me.

Solo is eating, drinking, and enjoying globs of peanut butter (shhhhh, definitely no meds inside). Last week, he picked out a bed to have at my parents’ house while he recovers, and surprise—it’s exactly the one he has in Baltimore. Nothing like the comforts of home.

And Solo is stubbornly committed to his job. Even with surgery and sedatives, he woke me at 4:00am this morning for a flawless overnight alert. (I’m staying within nose’s reach so that he doesn’t get out of bed.)

PROGNOSIS: The surgeon will recheck the surgery site in one week and hopes to remove Solo’s drain and stitches in two. In two weeks, we’ll receive the pathology report. Clean margins and a low-grade tumor mean we can put all of this behind us. Otherwise, we will move on to radiation. The surgeon remains optimistic that we will get this very good boy cancer free.

Thank you for all the love and support. You’ve blown me away. Solo is one lucky dog, but I may be even luckier.

Love,

Brianna

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Chances are, if you clicked on this link, you already know Solo. He needs no introduction, but I (Nicole!) will do one anyway. Brianna says Solo is “the happiest soul she has met in her life,” and anyone who has seen him galloping down Keyser Quad would agree. He’s the best Intro to Fiction and Poetry professor that Johns Hopkins has ever seen. (No one has taught iambic pentameter quite like he has!) He’s an unlicensed social worker. No pair of black pants or honeycrisp apple is safe around him. As someone who has personally benefited from his medical expertise (Solo comes with me to blood draws!), he’s clinically the calmest, goodest boy.

Solo is all that, and he holds down a full-time job. He’s a service dog, born and raised at Eyes, Ears, Nose, and Paws in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Solo is a medical alert dog, first and foremost. When Brianna brought him home to Baltimore, Solo’s “factory settings” included alerting for oxygen, blood pressure, heart rate, and migraines. Since then, he’s also taught himself how to alert for hypothermia and paralytic spells. He retrieves dropped items, medical devices, oxygen cannulas, and Brianna’s phone. Before Solo, Brianna would fall in the street multiple times a week and often struggle to get up. Solo wears a special harness with a handle for forward momentum while walking, taking stress off Brianna’s muscles and steadying her gait. He’s also trained in counterbalance: if Brianna is leaning one way, he knows to lean the opposite way. Now she only falls once or twice a year. And with Solo to brace her, she’s never trapped, waiting for someone or something to help her up.

His favorite trick? Solo has learned how to “tell” on Brianna, alerting other people when she is at risk and not making the proper adjustments.

Two days before Christmas, Brianna found a mass on Solo. They had been playing tug, and when Solo sensed that her body had had enough, he climbed on top of her to bring her heart rate back to normal. While petting him, she felt it: a soft-tissue sarcoma on his left flank, behind his last rib.

***Brianna wanted me to emphasize that Solo is not in any pain. He is still alerting, albeit somewhat lethargically***

Solo is scheduled for an urgent CT scan and surgery. The CT scan is set for this Wednesday, February 12th. This CT will show the placement of the tumor, if there are other masses in his body, and most importantly, what the tumor is attached to. The vet believes that the tumor has grown up into his body wall, meaning Solo will require invasive resection of the body wall and a reconstruction of that area.

The excision surgery will take place on February 18th. Fortunately, soft-tissue sarcomas don’t have a high risk of metastasizing, which is the best possible news. We hope the surgery will be completely curative. However, the tumor has grown rapidly over the last month. If the pathology shows a grade three tumor, Solo will need radiation therapy.

Solo lives in a world where strangers passing him in the grocery store or university hallways can’t help but grin at him. He knows how loved he is, and he always gets a laugh when he carries his own poop bag to the corner and deposits it in the trash can or when he recycles his pupcup cup like a responsible citizen. Our goal is to get him back out to the places and people he loves—and who love him—as soon as possible.

There’s a lot more to say about Solo, but to keep this brief, any funds raised for Solo will go directly to these CT and surgery costs. His CT scan, including preanesthesia lab work and sedation, is estimated to be $2,736.73. His surgery is estimated to be $6,558.10. With post-op medications and care, the surgeon estimates Solo's recovery will cost $10,000.

We appreciate the time you’ve taken to read this. Your donation or sharing this page means the world. And Solo would like to tell you so! He will send personal messages to anyone who contributes to his care. Please send your address to Solo at solo[dot][email redacted][dot]com to confirm you would like a card. I (Nicole) am also happy to field any questions at the above email address (as I briefly take over as his correspondence manager).

With love and nose bumps,

Solo & Brianna & Nicole

p.s. (from Solo, transcribed by Brianna because tech world has yet to make a keyboard big enough for his bear paws)

Nicole and Brianna are making this all about me, and I guess it is (everything is ... I’m a golden retriever). I bump my nose off whenever B starts to stink, and because I’m always looking out for her, she takes us to big fields to play ball, to the beach, the aquarium, the stream, and Build-a-Bear on my birthdays.

Long story short, I grew a lump, the doc is going to take it out, and he says I can’t do any of that stuff for a bit. I know B will take good care of me and do everything she can, just as I do for her. But it’s my job to worry about her, so anything you can do to help would mean a lot to this very good, slightly lumpy boy.

Drooly yours,

Solo Buddy