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
I couldn’t put it any better so i’m just going to past in an email my wife sent to my parents today.
Havanna is doing pretty well given whats going on with her. She was all lovey this morning and just wanted to cuddle in bed so I didn’t get out of bed until about 9:15 am! We stopped the morphine type drug and put her back on the NSAID so she’s not so doped up all of the time. Her personality really comes back when she’s not sedated but she is still up most nights in pain. Not sure why bone cancer is so much more painful at night, in humans and dogs, but I’m guessing its something with barometric pressure or some kind of atmospheric change. I am doing a lot of massage on her at night and have rotated the ice packs and now heating pads. Not sure what works better as she’s kind of tight lipped about it but something seems to help her here and there. She just started eating on her own again yesterday but its not a full blown chow down like it used to be. She will eat a little bit of kibble and then turn her nose up so we are still feeding her pureed food through a syringe.
Some how we seriously pissed off the animal gods. Sonoma has been a little sick the last two days and today we came home to a poo covered dog in a kennel. She was PISSED and stinky! UGH.
Wednesday will be a tough day for us. I have booked all three dogs for some kind of appointment at the U of M. We have to be there by 8 am to check Havanna into Oncology.
Havanna is having acupuncture, blood work, if the blood work is ok she will get her first dose of Adriamyiacin (chemotherapy) and after that she goes for Radiation.
Sonoma is having acupuncture and if she’s still sick, maybe a check up with a general vet.
Taylor is meeting with Oncology for a check up and then will have a follow up ultrasound to see if any of her tumors have grown. (Cross your fingers that they have not but given our luck lately, I doubt we’ll be so fortunate!).
Anyway, we’ll probably be at the U from about 7:45 am to at least 5 pm or later tomorrow. It will depend on how well Havanna does with chemo and radiation and how fast she comes out of the anesthesia.
If her blood work is bad they wont be able to do chemo but if its not that low they can still do radiation. I just hope everything goes smoothly!!!!
Feb 09, 2010 | | Canine Osteosarcoma
I can’t explain it but Jack didn’t need any Tramadol since 7:00pm last night. When she gets to the end of her 8 hours she tends to have more personality and is less subdued but is also uncomfortable so we end up giving her another 50mg of Tramadol. Well last night she didn’t seem to get uncomfortable. My wife applied a heating pad and also cold packs so perhaps those helped? We decided not to dose her unless she was uncomfortable and i’ll be damned we slept until 5:00am when she wanted to go out and then just came back in and went to bed. Then today (still no drugs) she didn’t seem uncomfortable and even chewed on a bone toy and took her rubber ball outside. Maybe we’ll get really lucky and she’ll eat on her own from her dog bowl. We’re still feeding her from the 1oz syringe of pureed dog food. I’m afraid she seems to like it so i’m not sure if she’s not eating because she’s spoiled or if she still doesn’t have an appetite.
Feb 07, 2010 | | Canine Osteosarcoma
Monday was Jack’s first radiation treatment. She was sedated and given radiation on the leg and hip where her bone cancer is. She was pretty out of it for the entire evening. She’s still not eating anything solid on her own. Sometimes will take a biscuit but most times not. We’ve been pureeing her dogfood and water using a food processor and then use a 1oz syringe we inject it into her mouth. She will thankfully eat the food that way. I’m beginning to wonder if the cancer hasn’t gone to her jaw as well and maybe the hard food is painful. She’s also started to cough alot in the past 24 hours. Her platelets have also crashed from 300,000 to 60,000. Next week she is supposed to get Chemo but if the platelets are still low she won’t be able to get chemo. We’re told the radiation doesn’t really help the pain until the 2nd or 3rd treatment but it did seem she was a bit more comfortable until late yesterday. The Tramadol helps but causes her to pretty much zone out. After about 6.5 hours it wears off and she is more like her old happy self but will whimper from the pain when she gets up or rolls over. You can alway tell when the pain is returning because she curls in a very tight ball. She’s a very tall skinny dog so it’s quite unnatural for her to do that. Usually she’s sprawled out stretched out pushing us off the bed/couch. After about 45 minutes after taking Tramadol she uncurls and relaxes but is pretty much zoning out or sleeping.
Feb 03, 2010 | | Canine Osteosarcoma