Greyt Matters

Yay!  A Wednesday without chemo!

Overall Sarge is doing well one week post-Adriamycin.  He was doing absolutely fantastic for about 3 or 4 days but then he did seem to slow down a bit.  His BMs also got very loose on about the 4th day but luckily it did not get so bad that I needed to break out the emergency drugs.

Sweet Sarge

The first time he had Adriamycin (in week 4 of the cycle) he was hit really hard but a lot of that may have been due to withdrawal from the Prednisone.  The Epirubicin that he had in place of Adriamycin in week 8 did not seem to run him down as much as the Adriamycin.  He should be bouncing back to his perky self in the next week.

Vincristine coming up next Wednesday as we start the last quarter of the treatment cycle.

Drug cycle number 3 of 4 is finished!  Only 4 more treatments to go!

Today Sarge had a “before-8 AM” drop-off because he got the scary Adriamycin chemo drug today.  So far, he is doing just fine with it.  We did two healthy walks after we got back this afternoon and he has been eating enthusiastically.  The last two times he had this drug, his appetite was decreased on Thursday evening after his Wednesday treatment so we’ll see how things go tomorrow.  I have the Hebrew National weiners thawing in the fridge now.

Overall, Sarge has been doing great, great, great the past few weeks, especially since we’ve gone to the bi-weekly schedule of treatments.  I can’t wait for the treatments to be over, but then he will be on his own to fight off the Big C.  I’m hopeful that Sarge will be a survivor!

P.S. An update on Daphne…she has been off her pain meds since last Saturday.  I would say that she is not totally back to normal but she is getting there.  She cried out in pain a couple times over the weekend, but I have not heard her yelp in a couple of days now.  Let’s hope the neck / spine crisis was a one-time-only incident.

Sarge had another round of Vincristine today.  He is doing great!

Daphne, on the other hand, is having a bad day.  😦  In the middle of the night, I heard her cry out in pain and I thought she might have caught her dew claw on her bed while digging her nest.  But then this morning, she did not want to go on a walk.  We made it down the driveway and two houses away but then she refused to go any further.  It seemed like she was favoring her left front leg but it was not totally obvious. 

The other clue that we had a problem:  when Sarge and I returned from his chemo treatment, Daphne did not greet us at the door.  She just laid on her bed in the back room.  😦

Not interested in going for a walk.  Not excited to see Sarge and me when we came home.  I knew something was definitely wrong.

Luckily, my regular vet was able to work her in late in the day.  He examined her and he thinks she may have possibly sprained her back somehow.  He could tell that she is definitely in pain but the source/cause of the pain is unclear.  He gave me some big ol’ pain meds to give her daily for at least the next four days so we can see if that helps.  I am to get back to him if she starts to limp worse, vomit, have problems with BMs, etc. 

I told him that I was paranoid about bone cancer now that I have seen so many of the greyhounds diagnosed with it on the Circle of Grey Yahoo group.  He said that he could not know for sure, but he did not think that was the problem. 

I hope those pain meds do the trick and she is back to normal quickly!

P.S.  Here are some great pictures of greyhounds having a blast in the snow: http://www.beevalegreyhounds.com/gallery/taunoverakahjot/

Okay, I got behind because of the holidays…this post should have been published on December 22nd, the Wednesday before Christmas.

Sarge had another round of Cytoxan on the 22nd.  He had no issues with the treatment, and he has been doing great for the past two weeks.  His fur has also started growing again, and it has filled up the bald patch where he had his bone marrow sample back in September.  He is also shedding like crazy because I think the new fur is pushing out the old.

The other thing to report around this time period is that I ran into a friend who told me that her beagle, Vanessa, had lymphoma last year, and she took her to Dr. Hamilton for chemo treatments.  The bad news is that Vanessa died after the 14th treatment because she relapsed during the bi-weekly portion of the protocol.   I don’t know this for sure, but I am trying to tell myself that she probably had the Type T (tougher) lymphoma whereas Sarge has the Type B (better). 

I’m just lovin’ every moment I have with him and trying (with mixed success) to not think about bad things that could happen in the future.