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 :-)!