Here we go again.

Lucky's first chemo treatment went very well.  She seemed to suffer no side effects and was her usual playful self with no vomiting or diarrhea.  She had one morning where she wouldn't finish her breakfast but when I came home from work, she was begging for food.  Otherwise, she seemed completely happy and content.

Her second treatment didn't quite go as well.  She's had no side effects since the first day of the treatment, however, the first day was extremely scary.  I went to pick her up after her chemo and the dog they brought out to me was not my dog.  She collapsed at my feet, not wanting to get up and when I tried to walk her out the door she was literally dragging her feet so they scraped across the floor.  I immediately called for help and told them she was NOT acting right.  Somehow it had gone unnoticed but shortly after the vet rushed out and said she most definitely was not acting normal and that tests needed to be done right away to determine the cause, as these symptoms were like nothing she'd ever seen with a chemo patient.  She was lethargic and oddly enough, yelping when she swallowed.  The vet was concerned that her stomach was distended and recommended immediate x-rays.  In a panic I of course agreed.  About 30 minutes later she came out and said it hadn't been that, but they were still puzzled.  Being a speciality hospital they had a range of doctors come look at her, each being stumped.  They began to think she had a spinal infection and recommended x-rays of her neck and spine, and again I obliged.  I was so worried, and had to leave the office to gather myself.  The vets told me to go home and they'd observe her and give me a call if anything came up.

Meanwhile, our oncologist was on the net, searching for rare side effects to this particular type of chemo.  Symptoms of this nature had never been reported in dogs, or at least not that she could find.  But similar symptoms had been reported in 1%  of humans who'd received the treatment.  She called it neurological leprathy, and said it was a temporary lapse in control over fine motor skills.  She wasn't certain that this was the case, but at this point all we could do was take her home and watch her.

Within a few hours, thankfully, she improved.  By the next day our scare was behind us.  She was bouncing around playfully, full of energy yet again.  Of course we were out another few 100 in vet bills, but at this point we try not to bat and eye and just flash the plastic and stow away bills so we don't have to look at them.

We are so thankful it turned out to be a temporary thing, but stumped as to how these odd, random, things keep occurring to us.   We try to remain positive but sometimes it seems overwhelming.  We almost lost our house we've been trying to buy last week, and my husband got in a wreck this weekend.  (Though thankfully no one was hurt).  Our friends joke that every time they call, they never know what to expect from us.  I keep telling myself our luck has to turn around eventually and hope that it does.  But at this point I suppose I should be thankful for the many blessings God has given me including my two beautiful fur babies and my super supportive husband.

Lucky's next treatment is today!

The End? Not by a long shot.

I had begun the last post a few weeks ago, and I had started thinking that this blog was coming to a completion.  That aside from a few other things I wanted to write about, there wasn't much more to do than provide updates on the girls.  It was a nice feeling to imagine I'd finally caught up on this project.


Thinking like that is what gets me in trouble.  I should know by now to never let my guard down.  On Tuesday, January 31, we found out Lucky now has lymphoma. 


It started about a month ago when I noticed her lymph nodes were swollen.  I took her to the vet and he recommended a round of antibiotics to rule out infection.  After two weeks the lymph nodes had shown a little response so he put her back on another round.  We thought they might be continuing to go down but suddenly they popped back up, bigger than ever.


We took her back to the vet and he suggested taking a lymph node to have it biopsied.  She had surgery and on the 31st we got the results.  We were devastated.  I immediately called Carolina Veterinary Specialists and got an appointment with an oncologist the next day.


Again, we started on this emotional roller coaster.  You'd think we'd be used to it by now, but again the feelings of panic and disbelief set in.  How in the world could this be happening AGAIN?  How could Lucky now have 2 different types of cancer and Abby another completely different type of cancer?  What were the odds?  Why did we deserve this?


The oncology appointment the next day went better than expected.  We discussed our options including different types of chemo and were told that with chemo, dogs typically have a pretty significant increase in life span.  It is still fatal and is very rarely cured. It didn't take us even a minute to decide.  When the vet closed the door to let us discuss it, my husband looked at me and said, "Let's do it," and off we are again.

We elected to do the CHOPS protocol which is a mix of various different chemo drugs given over a 19 week period.  She will get chemo for 4 weeks, get a week off, and then repeat the same cycle until the end of the treatment.   We decided not to wait and start treatment that same day.

Of course, we found ourselves making another difficult financial decision.  So much of our lives has been guided by our dogs.  We have been looking for a house for a year and ironically have found one.  However, after all this with Abby and the financial pit we dug ourselves, what we wanted in a house had to change, drastically.

We knew we wanted some land and privacy and that it had to be far off the road for the dogs.  We originally thought we could afford somewhere in the 150K range, yet it quickly became clear that this was no longer and option.  We started looking at foreclosures and found a home that is far from our dream home, but will allow us to have lower mortgage payments than what we pay in rent, and hopefully slowly start paying down some of these massive credit card and loan bills.

Of course we are now adding to the debt, but how can we not?  God knows we love these dogs more than words can express, and we have to give Lucky the same chance as Abby.  God willing Abby has been cured and there is a 3% chance that Lucky could be too.  I have to hold on to that 3% chance.  We did what everyone else told us was impossible with Abby.  Why not Lucky too?   If our odds with fate are such that we have two dogs who between them have now had 3 different types of cancer, we've got crazy luck anyways.  We're just hoping that it can work in both directions.

Amidst the chaos

In the middle of dealing with all of this with Abby, Lucky had several spots simulataneously appear in different places around her body.  Of course, having already experienced mast cell with her, our red flags were thrown up and I started to panic yet again.  My husband made an appointment to take her in and have them aspirated before deciding whether or not to surgically remove them.  So off we were to yet another vet appointment.  The night before, I had yet another break-down and suddenly feared the worst.  I was so sure it would be horrible and that we'd be dealing with the possibility of losing not just one dog, but two.  Negative thinking seemed to be an ability which I'd become greatly skilled in over the past few months. 

However, when my husband took her in the results of the aspirations weren't horrible  The vet felt that only one of them looked suspicious and said that in his experience, what he saw under the microscope wasn't probably too bad, if it was mast cell.  Still we elected to have them all removed as soon as possible.  A few days later they took Lucky in and cut off the spots we found, plus some we'd somehow missed (she ended up with 7 spots total removed).  The poor girl was miserable all night.  She is a drama queen and a whiner, and did not take well to pain medicene at all. She actually had a strange reaction to the sedatives which though harmless, really freaked me out.  All of this just resulted in a groggy, whiny, pup who spent the night howling in pain. :(

The next few days passed slowly while we waited for the results.  You'd think we'd be old pros at it by now and able to find time to keep busy and forget our fears of the unknown and momentarily get on with life, but it wasn't that simple.  Again, I watched the clock and kept my phone by my side constantly.   We finally got the call one day around noon.  Everything had come back fine.  I felt like we'd dodged a bullet.

But the thing with cancer is, you never know.  Even when you think your dog is in remission, there's always that chance that somewhere inside that precious furry body is a cancer cell, waiting to multiple and wreck havoc once again.  Once someone you love has had cancer, life is not the same anymore, and it seems somedays as though you live waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Or in our case, the other BOMB, that fell just this week.