First Radiation Treatment Monday
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.