Greyt Matters

I had to let my sweet boy, Sarge, go last Saturday.

About 4 weeks ago, I learned that his cancer was back.  Since then, I had more and more difficulty getting him to eat, and he got down to 70 lbs., which is 5 – 7 lbs. less than where I liked to see him.   He started bleeding from his mouth on Friday, the 22nd, but I and the vet were hoping that it was just from bad teeth and gums.  But when I woke up Saturday morning, Sarge had problems walking and he would periodically just collapse.  I had a mobile vet come to the house at 11:30 AM and she helped him pass on.

Even though we did not know Friday night would be his last, we made it a good one: a Wendy’s double cheeseburger for dinner and around 10 PM we spent some time laying in a cool patch of grass on a warm summer night.

I am going to miss him terribly.

M's Sarge

I saw the oncologist this morning, and we went over Sarge’s options.

Really, I had to pull the options out of him.  He seemed to be subtly pushing the most aggressive treatment, i.e., do it all over again.  16 treatments.  6 months.  But I do not want to put Sarge through that again: 6 months of chemo for another 9 – 10 months of life (maybe).  The second option is a middle ground with less chance of reaching remission (60%) and with less duration of remission (4 – 6 months, assuming we reach remission).  It would involve a drug Sarge has not gotten before (lomustine) so I don’t know how he would react.  But it would only be given every 3 weeks up to 6 times.  He would also be on Prednisone with this option.  The third option is to give Sarge Prednisone (alone) and make him as comfortable as possible for as long as he can hold on.  This option is not expected to extend his life beyond 1 to 2 more months.

I have an appointment with Dr. Fowler on Tuesday to get his opinion.

At this point, I am torn between option 2 (the middle ground) and just letting Sarge ride through the rest of his days.

The oncologist is assuming I will return to the Wisconsin Protocol, so Sarge got an injection of l-asparaginase this morning, which is supposed to shrink his lymph nodes and make him feel better.  The oncologist also started him on the 5 weeks of Prednisone.  I made an appointment for the following Friday to start either the Wisconsin Protocol or the lomustine.  I have until then to decide what to do…and whether I will keep the appointment.

I’ll post later how we got to this point, which happened very suddenly.