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.