Ahh of course as things get better we’re back at the U for more Chemotherapy. However the red devil Adriamycin isn’t so far as bad as the Carboplatin was and which by the way didn’t do anything for us. (not that it’s the same for everyone.) Jack got Moxa and acupuncture from the eastern medicine vet and then had her Adriamycin. She then was put out with the Michael Jackson drug and had her radiation which is her second treatment. We hope to see some pain relief from that so we can give her less drugs. Taking her off the Tramadol and onto the Rimadyl has been a great move. As long as her belly is full the Rimadyl is no problem. It gives her pain relief with no dopyness. Back to yesterday’s treatment. She came home and slept the entire rest of then evening and night. NO RAISED TEMP Thank god! I was pleased to wake up to a personality and wide brown eyes. She didn’t have any pain medicine all day until a Rimadyl around dinner. Still not eating on her own but takes the pureed food easily. So far on the Adriamycin / Doxorubicin she’s less sick, no naseua but we’re giving her drugs anyway and still has some minor diarrhea but not so bad and we give her a drug for that too. I never thought i’d say this but we were relieved to get a $2200.00 bill at the end of the day yesterday. We also had two other dogs there one 14 full of tumors but with no discomfort and the other with tears in the acl and groin injury getting therapy and acupuncture.
Feb 11, 2010 | | Dog Chemotherapy
We called the U of M this morning because Jack was a bit uncomfortable and we didn’t want to give her any Rimadyl because it seems to give her diahrreah and we thought it might be why she wasn’t eating. We had laid off the Tramadol as it seemed to cause her to breath faster and it worried my wife. The U of M felt she may not have been eating due to being in pain so we started the Tramadol again. They said the rapid breathing is fairly normal and just to watch that she doesn’t actually have trouble breathing which we’ve not seen. We also had a small victory. She ate a small bit of pumpkin from a can but the U said it acts as a stool softner so we only gave her a little bit. She would also eat a small amount of cold pasta if it was rolled into a ball. My wife then took her dogfood, a bit of hard boiled egg and water and puree’d it in our food processor. She put the paste into a large synringe that we used to give water when the dogs are sick and sent me outside. I expected a very unpleasant experience for both of us. Much to my surprise, I squirted a small amount on her tounge and she just swallowed and licked it up. She oddly would lick the mess from my fingers and the snow but would not eat the paste from a spoon. So we gave her three synringe full of dog food without any fight and she didn’t even seem irritated. It’s nice to know we now have a way to keep her fed even if food is not currently appealing.
Jan 30, 2010 | | Dog Chemotherapy
We took Jack to the U of M to have them look at her as she was not recovering well we thought from the chemo but it seemed like she was in pain in her him and other rear leg. They took xrays and found that the Osteosarcoma had spread to her hip and other leg. I never imagined it would be so fast. We are giving her pain medication but it is hard to say how effective it is. The nights are expecially hard for her, she is restless and can’t seem to get comfortable. We expect that she only has a short time if the pain cannot be managed. We’re going to try a drug that is a 4 hour IV drip that slows the progress of Osteoperosis and we’re going to try radiation to help with the pain. We also will start the Adriamycin chemo in three weeks which is what we probably should have started with. I’m honestly not sure if she’ll be with us for all this but we’re going to try what we can and see how her spirit is.
Jan 27, 2010 | | Dog Chemotherapy
With the past chemotherapy treatments Jack had nearly recovered by day three and on day four we knew she was better because we’d get a maw wow wow moan when she wanted her food. This time though while she would eat she needed to be encouraged and seemed to be depressed, tired and just wanted to lay around. My wife examined her and she seemed to have some pain on the hip where the leg was amputated. After getting a 1/2 Rimadyl she seemed to perk up a bit. My wife talked to our neighbor who received chemo for breast cancer and she said that there were cumulative effects from getting Chemo. She said that with each treatment she felt more and more exhausted and felt nerve pain. So we’re hopeful that this is all Jack is experiencing as well. It does seem to fit as her recovery has been slower with each treatment she receives.
Jan 24, 2010 | | Dog Chemotherapy
Wednesday January 20, 2010 was Jack’s third round of chemotherapy, this is her third and final round of Carboplatin. Previouly we had trouble with her spiking a fever over 105 several hours after bringing her home. We’ve found that it seems that she gets dehydrated which causes a fever which leads to her not wanting to drink. This was our most successful treatment yet because we did alot of preparation. In the morning Jack had acupuncture which is supposed to help with naseua. Our Eastern Medicine Vet also performed Moxa treatment for about 40 minutes. Prior to receiving her Carboplatin Jack received Benedryl and an IV based Anti-Naseua drug which we did on treatment two. We also had them give her IV fluids under her skin prior to heading home. We did not have trouble with Naseua but she did have a temp of 103.9 which is a fever but much lower than the 105.5 and 105.9 she reached before. We kept encouraging her to drink fluids and around 9:00pm her temp had dropped to 102.9 and she was normal the next day. We’ve continued to give her the anti naseua drug twice per day usually for about 4 days to stave off any naseua.
Jan 23, 2010 | | Dog Chemotherapy
When Jack receives the Carboplatin it seems to be about 4 days before she’s her old self. Thanks to getting the acupuncture and IV based anti-nausea drug she doesn’t throw up after Chemo but is fairly lethargic for 1-2 days. Day three she seems better but she always makes a mow mow type moan when it’s time for breakfast and dinner and she doesn’t do that until day 4-5 and then she is also fairly naughty picking on the other dogs, stealing toys etc. So it seems that it’s 4-5 days to fully recover from the Carboplatin chemptherapy.
Jan 07, 2010 | | Dog Chemotherapy
Jack received another round of Carboplatin today her 2nd of three before she’s switched to another Chemotherapy drug for the remaining three threatments. Because we had the emergency the evening after she received her last round of Chemo where we had to take her in for a 105.5 fever and vomitting we had them give her benedryl and the anti-naseua IV drug prior to receiving the Chemotherapy. Much like last time she spiked a fever 106.4 which is quite serious. She didn’t seem all that sick this time, no vomitting and only a little diahrrea. We called the U and they said that she should probably come in but they were in the middle of an emergency. She drank a little water and we let her outside for a bit. When she came in we used a large syringe to give her more water and then waited about 20 min before re-taking her temprature. This time it was down to 105.1 and she wasn’t that interested in drinking but keeping her hydrated seemed to help the fever break much like the last time where they gave her IV fluids to re-hydrate her after the vomitting. I discovered that she would drink out of MY water glass with the ice cubes so i’ve relinquished my water glass for the night in hopes that her fever will continue to drop. Update: An hour later her fever stabilized at 105.1 still too high but wasn’t rising any longer and she was drinking on her own from her own water bowl. She fell asleep and we checked her two hours later and the fever had thankfully dropped to 103. We decided to keep an eye on her vs bringing her in because outside of the fever she was acting normally as the nausea drugs must have been working. She has slight diahrrea but even tht wasn’t bad. As soon as she started drinking more water the fever began to subside so we kept that going. Had it not worked or if she appeared to feel sick or was lethargic we would have been back at the University. Today see seems mostly back to her old self. Thank goodness round two is over.
Dec 30, 2009 | | Dog Chemotherapy
Monday 12/7/2009 was the first Chemotherapy for my now three legged dog with Osteosarcoma bone cancer. She received Carboplatin for chemptherapy which takes about 15 minutes to give however we had to leave her the entire day so they can do diagnostic work prior to giving the chemo. The cost was about $650 and she’ll have Chemotherapy six total times three weeks apart. You can read more on Carboplatin at the Bone Cancer Dogs website. We were given Metoclopramide for nausea and vomiting to use as needed every 8 hours. Metronidazole to use every 12 hours in case of diarrhea and an antibiotic called TMS which starting three days after chemo she is to be given one every 12 hours until the course is completed. Carboplatin suppresses the immune system so the antibiotics are to help fend off infection and other viruses. She came home at about 6:30pm and seemed ok. However around 8:30pm she started vomitting. Twice containing all her dinner. Then bile. No diarrhea however. She seemed very uncomfortable and had thrown up her anti nausea drug. She had a 105.5 temp so we called the hospital and they said bring her in. We made the hour trip in and by the time we got there and she had puked once in the car she seemed better. Still running a 103 temp they gave her an IV for re-hydration and an IV drug for nausea. An hour later her temp was down and she seemed much happier. We got home about 2:00am and thankfully everyone slept the entire night. Since then we’ve given the Metoclopramide every 8 hours to keep the nausea. Wednesday evening we gave nothing as the nausea seemed gone and she was eating normally. For the next round of Chemotherapy we’ll have them give the IV drug so she can be more comfortable sooner.
Dec 11, 2009 | | Dog Chemotherapy