{"id":119,"date":"2014-05-10T08:25:07","date_gmt":"2014-05-10T15:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/?p=119"},"modified":"2025-03-03T14:59:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T22:59:48","slug":"meet-mr-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/2014\/05\/10\/meet-mr-bear\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Mr. Bear: One of thousands of patients that has been helped because of MRI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/issue\/spring-summer-2014\/\">Spring\/Summer Issue 2014<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>by Marcia Hill Gossard &#8217;99, &#8217;04 Ph.D.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>After noticing an odd lump on his dog\u2019s head in the spring of 2013, Joel Greenhalgh of British Columbia, Canada, took Mr. Bear, a then 11-year-old Australian Sheppard-Rottweiler mix, to his local veterinarian. At first the advice was to watch and see, but when it didn\u2019t go away, his veterinarian took a biopsy. Mr. Bear had cancer.<\/p>\n<p>The Canadian oncologist referred Mr. Bear to WSU. <a href=\"http:\/\/vth.vetmed.wsu.edu\/specialties\/neurology\">Neurologist<\/a> Dr. Annie Chen and fourth-year veterinary student Beryl Swanson at the <a href=\"http:\/\/vth.vetmed.wsu.edu\/\">WSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital<\/a> examined Mr. Bear and got him in right away for an MRI.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMRI is the best way for us to evaluate the brain,\u201d said Dr. Chen.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>\u201cWSU saved my dog\u2019s life.\u201d<\/strong><br \/>\n\u2014Joel Greenhalgh, Mr. Bear\u2019s owner<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Originally, Mr. Bear\u2019s local veterinarians had believed he just had a lump on the outside of the skull, but the MRI results showed that the cancerous skull tumor was also growing into the skull and pressing on the brain. Dr. Chen and her team took MRI scans from different angles and used different techniques to see the exact location of the tumor and where the blood vessels were.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe needed to know how far the tumor had extended,\u201d said Dr. Chen. \u201cTo know up to the millimeter is very important.\u201d By knowing where the edges of the tumor were, Dr. Chen could better explain the benefits and risks of the surgery. She also saw the tumor was growing very close to a major blood vessel, which added to the risk. But the MRI made all the difference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy having the images, we felt confident we could approach that area and do the surgery,\u201d said Dr. Chen.<\/p>\n<p>After long and very delicate surgery, they removed more than 90% of the tumor. Because Dr. Chen knew where the vessel was from the MRI scan, she was able to tease the tumor away from the vessel and not tear it. WSU oncologists followed up with radiation to kill the remaining cancer cells.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWSU saved my dog\u2019s life,\u201d said Joel Greenhalgh.<\/p>\n<p>Read <a href=\"http:\/\/vth.vetmed.wsu.edu\/featured-patients\/bear\">Mr. Bear&#8217;s full story<\/a> and learn more about the <a href=\"http:\/\/giving.vetmed.wsu.edu\/giving-opportunities\/mri-campaign\">MRI campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Update: In December 2014, \u00a0Mr. Bear passed away, but he enjoyed 1 \u00bd years with his family after the surgery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After noticing an odd lump on his dog\u2019s head in the spring of 2013, Joel Greenhalgh of British Columbia, Canada, took Mr. Bear, a then 11-year-old Australian Sheppard-Rottweiler mix, to his local veterinarian. At first the advice was to watch and see, but when it didn\u2019t go away, his veterinarian took a biopsy. Mr. Bear had cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1015,"featured_media":99,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wsuwp_accessibility_report":[]},"categories":[511,542,514],"tags":[619,551,614],"wsuwp_university_location":[332],"wsuwp_university_org":[425],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1015"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2746,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/2746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}