A Year Has Past......

Well November 19th was a year from when we first found the cancer and December 1st was a year from when we first started treating (his first surgery). He had a check up with his oncologist on December 2nd and I was excited about this, but nervous to! He continues to look great!! The Doctor agreed, healthy, eyes looked great, no problem with lymph nodes...so off to X-rays. When the doctor came out I could tell that it wasn't going to be all good news :-( Jack has one small, oval spot on his lung. The vet said that this isn't what normal metastasized melanoma looks like, which is usually many and round. But because he is on the melanoma vaccine they aren't sure whether this is the vaccine keeping it down to one or if this is something new with the lung. She said these are common but because dogs usually aren't getting periodic x-rays they aren't found until its to late. She said that this one is in the perfect spot to successfully treat if it is purely a "lung" issue. She wanted to wait 4 weeks to see what happens with it. So he goes back on 12/30 and we'll know more then. So not the news we hoped for but I know we need to keep the faith and know that we have to cherish the fact that he is with us over a year later and continue to cherish each day with him!



I also spoke to his holistic vet and he has an appointment with her on 12/7 to see what our next course of action is there. I'll post more at the end of the month and hopefully the news is positive!!

Another Milestone!!

Well Jack had his 3 month check up today. His lymph nodes feel fine and his x-ray was clean!! So we will keep with what we have been doing and his next check up will be in December, where he will also get his 6 month Melanoma booster.

I asked the oncologist when I could breathe a little easier and she said a year after treatment started. I asked if that meant surgery, she said yes. So the first surgery was 12/1/09 and his second was 12/8/09. So we will have a party on 12/1/10!!!

Another Milestone!

Well we reached another milestone today. I took Jack in for his 6 month Melanoma Vaccine Booster and they went ahead and did his xrays today. Its been almost 4 months since his last xray. It came back normal!!! His lympth nodes are also normal. So he doesn't have to go back to the oncologist for 3 months (September) for another xray and then in December I'm assuming they will do more xrays and another booster!! He continues to look great!

Next step in our journey....holistic medicine

Jack and I had an appt with our holistic vet last week. He continues to do great and were are moving on from traditional medicine to supplement with holistic medicine. She now has me feeding him 50% canned and 50% kibble. With that he has a number of items that we mix in

• Multi Vitamin Daily
• Probiotic GI capsule daily
• Liver GI Detox Daily
• Myco Forte twice a day
• Dr. Goodpet digestive enzymes twice a day
• Salmon oil twice a day
• Modified Si Miao San twice a day
• Greens mixed with food twice a day (kale, dandelion greens, etc)

We will be going back to see the vet in a month. Each month brings new items to his care....but its worth it, he's doing great!!! So in May we just have a month check up with the holistic vet. Then his melanoma vaccine booster in June. I did check with both the holistic vet and oncologist about whether he should get his annual vaccines as I read you should proceed carefully after a cancer diagnosis. I haven't heard back from the oncologist yet but the holistic vet said to wait until he reaches his year being free of cancer and then do a blood test to see if he has the antibodies, if he does then we don't need to worry about the vaccine!

Yeah!!! He graduated from Chemo

Well today was Jack's last day of chemo, he continues to do great! The staff has been wonderful and they love him. They gave me a nice card with some nice notes in it along with a picture of Jack in a graduation cap...so cute! So after his CBC check next week he won't have to go back until June for a melanoma vaccine booster and then in July for a x-ray check. I will be checking in with the holistic vet in a couple weeks to see what more I can do on that end. Will report more once we see her.

Jack is doing great......

Jack has been doing great!! He has a wonderful appetite, good energy and no other problems. He had his last dose of carboplatin on Thursday. In two weeks he will be done with chemo, yeah!! So far no recurrence can be seen of the disease and we hope he stays that way!!

Latest Updates

Well I haven't updated for a while, been quite busy with soccer and work! Everything is going great with Jack. He has had two more doses of chemo, the last one yesterday. This is the one that can really bring his counts low so we'll keep a close watch on him! We did discover that when he goes to the vet he raises his temp almost 2 degrees!! His appetite is doing great and he has been full of energy and in a great mood. All tests/exams look good and his x-rays show no new disease, its been almost 4 months since we discovered the cancer in his nail. We thought yesterdays treatment was the last one but his doctor wants to do two more treatments. She said he has been handling it so well that this would be best. I'm getting a second opinion just to make sure. It is getting a bit costly to say the least! We did discover that he doesn't like the new Orijen fish blend that I put him on. So we are trying the regular one and also have him on Taste of the Wild. For awhile he was very picky and would only eat if it was something new each feeding. He has seemed to have gotten over that, for now! :-) I've stopped with the homemade wet food, and have instead been using good grade wet food as he didn't like the homemade food anymore. So for now all is going great, he is a happy guy :-).

Jack is back home.....

So Jack is back home, they sprung him just before 7 last night. His temp is back to normal and he looks much better. Man he was so excited when he saw me in the lobby. There is nothing like a dog's love and greeting! They never did find out exactly what was causing the high fever but his WBC is back to normal and the other numbers are rising. He is on two different antibiotics for the next 10 days. We are still going forward with the chemo next week since that one he seems to tolerate well. He is still being finicky about his food (though eating any and all treats!). He isn't liking the homemade food so I'm trying different really good canned foods. We shall see how that goes tonight.

Wow....a change in course

Well Jack has been looking well overall. Just finicky with eating. He ate ok this morning but as the day went on my daughter noticed things that worried her. He was coughing, seemed a bit weak, wouldn't eat treats (which never happens!) and just seemed out of sorts. I decided to take him in just in case. Good thing I did....when I got there he had a fever of 104.5 and they were worried he had pneumonia. They did blood work and chest xrays. He was due to have his weekly blood work tomorrow so it was just a day early and he was due for a round of xrays next week so that was a week early. The xrays came back clear...no signs of pneumonia and no signs of new cancer!! yeah!! But by that time his temp was up to 105.3 and his WBC was at 1000, normal is 6-16 thousand! So he ended up having to spend the night where they were going to add Baytril antibiotics and give him fluids. I went to tell him good night and when I left (of course he wanted to go too!) he was wagging his tail, standing on his hind legs, whining :-(. I know it is better that he is there with them, but man it was hard to leave him. His oncologist will be in tomorrow and we will go from there. This really isn't unexpected but we were really hoping he'd continue to breeze thru this!!

4th round....

So Jack had his fourth round of chemo (CCNU (Lomustine ) ) and his final Melanoma vaccine yesterday. In two weeks he has a 5th round of chemo and xrays. The xrays will be our first test to see if there is any noticeable spread. It looks like they will be recommending another vaccine in 4 months, I had heard about a 6 month booster so we'll see what they have to say. I was out of town and my mom took Jack in so I haven't had a chance to ask any questions about the booster. We'll see how his blood work is in a week. His eating habits are definitely off course but at least he is still eating!!

Ok update: So today he would eat treats and any wet food but not his kibble with gravy. So I tried feeding his kibble as a treat, tossing them in the air one at a time....he ate it all!! So maybe he doesn't like the gravy I've been using?? Will try just straight broth or nothing tomorrow and see what happens. The gravy I had been using was the leftover from the crockpot when I made his wet food. Gotta be creative I guess :-)!

Lastest blood work...

His latest blood work looked good overall, considering he is on chemo! The only sign I really see that he is on chemo is that his eating habits have changed. He used to gobble his food down in 30 seconds. He now is a much slower eater and is a bit pickier. But other than that he is doing great. He has his final melanoma vaccine shot and his fourth chemo treatment this coming Thursday. This chemo will be the CCNU again so I assume he will be on the two meds again. I'll update with his progress next weekend.

Eating habits

Well one things I've noticed is that his eating habits change for a few days after chemo. He hasn't been eating much the last couple of days, but is willing to eat treats! This evening I tried again and no go. Then I tried just a little kibble with a little broth on it.....he ate it up, three servings worth. I then gave him a few servings of his homemade food by itself with out the kibble and he ate three servings of that. Go figure!!

Half way done......

Jack had his third round of chemo (Carboplatin) and another melanoma vaccine shot yesterday. His blood work looked great!! At or better than pre-treatments!! He has the same minor symptoms as the prior treatments....a little bit tired and not eating quite as well. But overall he seems to be handling the treatments very well. I noticed a skin tag on him and had the oncologist check it out...I'm worried about everything these days. They said not to worry. So we'll check his CBC next week. I'll report back then.

WBC a bit low....

Jack's WBC is a bit low (3), but that is to be expected. My vet mentioned it was close to him needing to be put on antibiotics as a preventative. I let him know that the oncologist already had him on one. I faxed the CBC results to the oncologist. She gave me a call as she was concerned about his Absolute Neutrophil Seg, which is quite low - 60, while he was over 6500 pre chemo (though this is not unexpected). She just wanted to make sure he was looking OK. Thank goodness he looks great, has plenty of energy, is eating great, no diarrhea or vomiting. So she said to just keep an eye on him for lethargy and contact her if anything changes or his temp goes to 103+. I checked his temp just in case and he is actually on the low side of "normal" which is great news! The oncologist thought his numbers should bounce back in the next few days. We'll know for sure next Thursday when they do another CBC before the do the third round of chemo.

One more round down.......

Jack continues to do great! He had another round of chemo, this time CCNU (Lomustine ) which is an oral chemo. He also had another Melanoma vaccine shot. His white blood cell count was low, though that's expected. Not so low as to cause a lot of worry though. With this chemo drug there is more of a chance of it affecting his Liver so he takes Denamarin 30 minutes before his breakfast. They also want to avoid an infection (of his own bacteria) so he started an antibiotic today to keep an infection from forming. He continues to eat well and looks great. No diarrhea or vomiting. He looks a little tired today but is still willing to play, just not as long! He goes back in on Thursday for another CBC. Will update more then.

Ok...he's getting a bit finicky!!

Well he has not been eating as well the last couple of days. I don't believe it is because he isn't feeling well as he has no problems eating my eggs or his treats or dog bones! So I figured it might be some of the "extras" I'm adding to his food. There were three items I added recently so I individually mixed the mushroom capsule, kelp mix and digestive enzymes with some chicken broth. He wouldn't eat the mushroom or kelp. So I kept those out and he ate more than he has been. Still not everything but much better! I was a bit sneaky back to him and put the mushroom capsule in a dog treat...so he got it whether he liked it or not!! Geez the other animals I have, both cats and dogs, will eat his food mix with no problem!! :-) I heard from a friend who recently went thru chemo that her taste buds changed while she was going thru chemo...maybe that's it!!

Update - I believe he is liking the homemade food over the kibble.....getting spoiled I think :-) He'll leave kibble, but will eat more of the homemade stuff!

On another note his CBC came back today and overall he is looking pretty well when I look at his numbers vs. "averages" for a dog and compare them to his prior numbers. I'm sure I'll get more info from his oncologist before our next chemo appt next Thursday.

Meeting with Holistic Vet

We met with the holistic vet yesterday. It was an interesting meeting and she confirmed I was on the right track with changing his diet to a mostly protein, veggie diet with very little grains and those grains needed to be barley or brown rice. I also supplement his food with salmon oil, a mushroom capsule, multi vitamin, digestive enzymes and sea meal (kelp) and two crushed almonds. This diet is supposed to help his body fight the cancer and make him healthier overall. For now, since Jack is going thru chemo she suggested holding off on any antioxidant supplements. I will add those once he is done with chemo. She did say to add a lot of greens (collard, spinach, beet, kale) to the food I'm making for him. Its more work than just scooping a cup of kibble (he gets that to, Orijen) but it will make him so much healthier! She also said that should he have nausea with any of his treatments, that acupuncture can really help. I will keep in contact with her, especially after his chemo is over. All my research shows that this disease is a very devasting and sneaky disease and we are trying to cover all are bases.

Now we just wait to see how his CBC comes back on Thursday. He continues to do great!!

A little more about Jack's surgeries

Jack ended up having three surgeries.....the first one was to clean up the nail and get it to biopsy. The second my vet decided to "take what was needed but keep what he could". I think the main reason they went with this was because the toe was a weight bearing toe and they wanted to save as much as possible. The biopsy came back with clean margins but only 2-3 mm...they usually like more than that. The oncologist that we were referred to suggested that the whole toe be removed. We had the choice to have the board certified surgeon do the surgery (because it was weight bearing) or our vet if they felt comfortable. My vet stated that he did feel comfortable doing it and it was quite a bit less expensive. In some ways he was reluctant to do the third surgery because he felt he got all the cancer in the prior surgery and was worried that taking the whole toe would affect his ability to walk. Thankfully Jack walked out of the vet office after the surgery! My vet was amazed!! He is now not only walking but running and jumping!! Its a good thing that we did the final surgery as they found a small amount of cancer. His margins are now clean for 2.2 cm...much better. If I had to do it again I would have just had them take the whole toe, its the only way to get better margins.

Jack continues to do great. We will take him in on Thursday for a CBC. His next treatment will be a week after that. That treatment will be with a different chemotherapy drug so I hope he does as well on that one as he has on this one! This picture shows him minus his toe. Still a great looking dog :-)

So far so good.....

Well this is the third day and overall it is going well. I just spent a round of "get the ball" with Jack and he had a great time and lots of energy. He ate well this morning, not quite as much as usual but I've increased the amount I'm giving him. I noticed he wanted his kibble dog food more than what I have been making, so I'll change it up at the next feeding. Also not sure if he is liking that ginger so I'll not put it in for his evening meal and see if that makes a difference. No major nausea or diarrea so that is good!

On another note a friend of mine asked why I was doing this blog. After I thought about it I think its for two reasons, one because it helps me to get my thoughts down and two when I first found out Jack had this cancer I found a lot of info on cancer but not a lot about his specific kind and even less about how the experience was going thru it. Hopefully this will help someone else in the future.