My day started like this: (BTW... I know you just want to get to Abby's X-rays, but this sets the scene)
I hear my LOUD neighbors talking even louder than usual, so that I actually think, "Are they in my yard?" I get up from where I'm watching the news (which is the only spot in the whole house where I can't see their roof line) to find my neighbor crawling up NAKED onto the roof of his gazebo (presumably he crawled out of their hot tub, which is smack on the other side of our fence.) He was fighting with his wife (again - this is a common occurrence since they moved in a couple months ago...) and I guess you can make your point better from a higher vantage point. (My very funny friend said, "I personally don't have the confidence to go into battle naked, but it sounds like he's not saddled with such trivialities." Clearly, he's not.) Anyway, I opened the door and yelled, "Hello?!" while Abby ran out and barked like crazy at him. (Go, Abby!) He had the surprisingly good sense to actually look sheepish and get back down. (I feel I should also mention that we live on a canyon, so he was in full view of whomever might have been lucky enough to be standing in their backyard this morning.)
I was inside trying to calm down after the horror of all that, when I heard them yelling at each other again, this is with all the doors/windows closed, mind you. So I go outside and, standing in the middle of my yard, say, "I can hear you!" Finally they realized I was talking to them. She says, "But this is the first time we've been out here at this time." Like the time of day (8.30a.m.) was my issue. (Apparently they have no clue - because I'm quiet! - that I'm sitting in my office working most days, listening to them yell at each other.) I said, "I don't care what time of day it is, I hear you guys yelling at each other and cussing at each other all the time." Then I politely requested that I not see them naked anymore. She, again surprisingly, had the good sense to apologize.
After that I took Abby to the beach, hoping the sun, sand and sea would restore my frazzled spirits. It mostly did, except for when someone tried to run into me, but then when we got home, there was a super scary looking dude sitting in my yard. I thought he was with the movers across the street, but it turned out he's a buddy of my scary naked neighbor. It freaked me out a little that he was in my yard, so I went around and locked all the doors.
Before all this, I read an article this morning where some numerologist stated that because today is 11.11.11, it would be an extreme sort of day. If you were having a good day, it would be colossally good, and if you were having a bad day... well, you might as well go back to bed. So, I'm thinking before her appointment that her xrays are going to be terrible because I'm having such a crappy day. Then on the way there, another person tries to run into me (signals to change lanes into the right lane, but swerves left into MY lane instead).
Finally - the appointment news
At the appointment, I told Dr. V. we'd decided to go ahead with the X-rays and switch to Masitinib if it was bad news, but I asked him how we would decide what was "bad." He said if the mets were 25% larger, we'd make the switch. They take Abby in the back, and I'm seriously feeling like I'm going to throw up, and then he finally comes back and says, "Well, I don't know what we should do. Come look at these X-rays and we'll decide." He added, "Her mets are not acting like normal mets." Here's what we saw:
Boris: from some angles he was ~20% bigger (he went from ~4cm to ~5cm). From some angles, he didn't look much bigger at all. 
Natasha: from some angles she looked exactly the same (~2cm), from other angles she even looked smaller! (You know that Natasha, always trying to stay slim and sexy! "Does this lung make my ass look big?")Dr. V. said he expected to see lots of dots all over. There were not lots of dots all over. So... if that was all that was going on in there, that would have been GREAT news and we would have just kept on with what we're doing. But...
There was a brand new met - and it went from non-existent to even bigger than Natasha (~3cm) in the past 4 months. Yes, Fearless Leader appears to have joined B&N in their quest to bring us down. But we are not giving up the fight! Oh no! We are going to try the Masitinib for a week and see how it goes. If she does well, we'll keep it up and if not, we go back to the cytoxan/artemisnin. I asked what the goal is; should we just hope it keeps things stable. He said yes, that is the realistic goal - to keep them stable or slow them down. But, he said they could disappear.* He said he has not seen them disappear with osteosarcoma, but he has with other cancers. And since Abby's mets seem to not be acting like normal mets, who knows! She could be the miracle pup.
At any rate, the very good news is that he said, "She's not going anywhere anytime soon." :)
* For those of you on Tripawds, I said, "Oh I just read about a dog the other day on Tripawds whose mets disappeared." He said, "Yeah, we had a dog here. Lucky." Me: "Yeah! Lucky!" It turns out Dr. V. is Lucky's vet too! I had no idea! Going to have to PM them! Hopefully Abby will be "lucky" as well.
