A Good Day Is Any Day That You’re Alive

There have been a few days lately where I’ve questioned whether this is all worth it. And we had a couple days this week where the answer was definitely “yes.” Abby’s tail was wagging and she had a lot of energy. She was playful and kept begging for treats. We gave in a couple times. We’ve started to give her biscuits again (1/2 biscuit at a time) and we’re putting pieces of Chicken Grillers in her toys before we leave for work, rather than the canned ID.

I took her for a short walk yesterday. It was good for both of us to get out of the house. All the snow makes me a little stir crazy.

She had her first dose of CCNU three weeks ago. She’s scheduled for another dose of CCNU on Wednesday. She’ll get another dose three weeks from Wednesday, and then once every four weeks after that (as long as everything continues to go well).Her blood counts are good, and the stool sample I took in was fairly normal. We’ll have to keep a closer eye on her after she gets her treatment. She’s pretty weak for a couple days, so I’ll have to remind myself to watch her when she goes outside to make sure she doesn’t trip on the steps to the deck, and to make sure everything is coming out okay. I’m just starting to get used to letting her out without keeping an eye on her every single second, but I’ll adjust.

We Wish You a Merry Sniffmas and an Abby New Year

Yes, I am that much of a dork. You don’t even want to know what other song lyrics I’ve mutilated as I’ve sung to my dog over the years. It’s sad and pathetic and wrong. Yet, I still do it. “Her name is Abby and she is a silly dog,” to the tune of Duran Duran’s Rio, anyone?

Tim made her a special meal for Christmas Eve: ground turkey and rice. She has thanked us by farting profusely.

Our nephew got her a toy. It was a red plush bone with a squeaky toy inside, and a rope woven through the middle of it. Abby saw the toy as prey and destroyed it within about 20 minutes. She destroyed a similar toy last year in about 10 minutes, but she has fewer teeth now. Good to see she still has enough energy to attack inanimate objects, though.

Pardon the mess…

I imported some things from another blog, and much like the yard in March after the snow melts, I have a lot of cleaning up to do.

Abby’s Latest Adventure

We’ve been lucky to have our boxer Abby for 10 1/2 years. We’ve had a lot of great times together. We’ve also had many medical adventures over that time, including:

• The mishap with the $1,000 toy
• Two skin tags that turned out to be mast cell tumors
• Boxer cardiomyopathy

Our latest, and most likely final, story began in July when Abby was diagnosed with lymphoma. I wanted to start a blog so I could share information with friends and family. 

Today Is the Day I Realized I’m Losing It

Warning: Do not read during or immediately preceding a meal.I went home for lunch today, as is my Monday tradition. Abby had been really tired this weekend from her chemo pills. We also had an incident where she tried to climb up the three stairs to the deck and ended up sprawled on her stomach, so we’ve been keeping a close eye on her when she’s outside, just in case she needs help.

I let her outside today. She was especially groggy when I came home, so I was watching to make sure she didn’t stumble up or down the stairs, and I was also watching to make sure she took care of business. She started to squat in the snow, and some golden brown stuff came out. Then some more stuff came out, but it didn’t drop into the snow. Instead, it was dangling from her hindquarters. She moved and squatted again, and it still dangled, although it was getting closer to the snow this time, and longer. It finally broke off and she ambled toward the house.

Being the curious sort, and wanting to make sure there wasn’t anything unusual (we’ve been watching for blood and mucus in her stool too), I went outside for a closer look. What I saw freaked me out just a little bit. Either she swallowed a plastic bag, or something else came out of her system. There was a long wrinkly yellowish tube lying on the ground, surrounded by poop. It looked like a sausage casing, or a deflated balloon.

I immediately called Tim, and he was more amused than alarmed. He talked me off the ledge, and I was able to go back to work without hyperventilating.

When Tim got home, he cleaned up part of the yard, and he found more droppings that looked like discarded poop sausage casings. (I’m trying to avoid making a “chocolate hot dog” reference here, but too late.)

Abby goes to the vet in a couple days, so unless something really weird happens between now and then, we’ll just casually mention it when we bring her in. I’m trying to tell myself that this is the right thing to do, and there’s no cause for alarm. There isn’t any blood, or it would be a different story. I can’t stop thinking about it, though. I’m partially fascinated, and partially disturbed. Let’s just say there’s pictorial evidence. You know, just in case the vet asks. Or if I think I hallucinated this whole day.

Red Light Fever

Abby went to the vet for chemo today. She’s at about 68 pounds.Before he administered the treatment, the vet called. I was glad that I checked her stool in the yard (golden brown, mostly firm) even though Tim gave me a hard time about it, because I was able to pass that information on to the vet.

We’re going to continue the antibiotics for another week, just to be safe. Her white cell count is a little high (16,000 is normal, and she’s at 24,000, but those are mostly due to neutrophils). Her red cell count is on the low end of normal, but still OK. We are discontinuing the sucrulfate, which makes our pill administration less complicated. I made a new chart.

She received an 80 mg dose of the CCNU, and the vet said that should help with the size of her lymph nodes. She was visibly uncomfortable in her gentle leader on the way to the vet, because it was pressing on her neck. I felt badly for her and was hoping to adjust her collar at a red light, but today I hit all the green ones.

We’re hoping to be able to give her treats by the weekend. The vet techs wanted to give her treats too (and believe me, she was begging for them), but couldn’t.

She spent most of the evening sleeping on a blanket on the floor. She didn’t even move when I went back out to the vet’s office to get the antibiotics. Even without the IV, she’s still exhausted.

We bring her back in one week to get her cell counts. We want to keep a close eye on the medication because it’s a new treatment for her. After that, if all is stable, we’ll bring her in once every 3 weeks for treatment. This will be good for her (because she gets so tired from the drugs and all the excitement at the vet) and for our budget (the pills are about $145, and that doesn’t include the blood work). It’s manageable, though.

One More Bump in the Road

We took Abby to the vet last Wednesday (12/5) for her vincristine IV. She had some episodes of soft stool on Tuesday, and the vet noticed she had diarrhea with mucus in it on Wednesday, so he decided to skip the IV treatment. It turned out to be a good thing, because she had some blood in her stool on Thursday.She had kept Tim up most of Wednesday night by asking to go outside every couple hours and when he came home over lunch on Thursday, there were a couple brown presents waiting for him on the living room carpet. She’s a giver, our dog. I was in our other office, but decided to come home for lunch and work the afternoon from home. (I can’t say how thankful I am that I’m able to have the flexibility to do this.)

Because the lumps on her jawline aren’t getting smaller, the vet suggested a new form of treatment called CCNU. He’s getting it from a human pharmacy and it will be administered in pill form. I’m not sure if we’ll be giving it to her, or if it’s something they’ll do at the vet’s office as they’re monitoring her cell counts. Once again, her white blood cells and lymphocytes looked good, but the lumps on her neck were still large.

To help with the diarrhea, we got some antibiotics from the vet, and we were also told to start using the sucrulfate again (the blue pills Abby intensely dislikes). Because her list of medications is so complicated, and because we don’t want to miss anything, I made a chart. Adding to the complexity is the fact that the sucrulfate and Pepcid can’t be taken at the same time; we have to give her the Pepcid at least an hour after she’s had the sucrulfate because they counteract each other if taken together.

There’s also a moratorium on treats, which is difficult for all of us. Abby is used to getting something every other time we’re in the kitchen. Luckily, we can still give her the canned ID, which she loves. It’s also useful for hiding pills.

Instead of treats, we’ve been putting the canned ID in some of her toys just so she has something to occupy her when we leave in the morning.

The diarrhea has slowed down so we only have to come home at lunch, rather than being with her all the time to let her out every couple hours. And she slept through the night last night, which was helpful for all of us.