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| Driving to 1st follow up |
1st follow up done! Jake had his first follow up visit with Dr Joseph this week and the dr was pleased to see his progress. Even though he still leans and is much slower than his normal self he is making good strides. Jake was a trooper, glad he wasn't poked as much as last time but was sad he missed seeing his nurse Emily (her day off).
Not feeling well. The morning we were set to go to the dr follow up Jake got sick in the middle of the night.Truthfully it's unclear if he threw up or had diarrhea because it was hard to tell what we found. If that's the case then this would be the first time ever that he went to the bathroom in the house. Also, he peed in the house first thing in the morning just as we were about to take him outside (He's done this 1 or 2 times since he first got sick but these are the first times in his life he's ever had accidents in the house). Then to cap things off he threw up in the drs office that morning. Not sure what this was all about but he definitely didn't feel too good.
What to expect. The dr wasn't overly concerned about this all and said he will have good days and bad days. He took a blood and urine test to check for infection just to be safe. He says the goal now is to let the steroids buy us time while we
wait for the full effects of the cyberknife treatment to set in (which
could be several months). We tried lowering his steroid (dexamethasone)
to 1 pill per day and he started leaning much more and was having a hard
time so the dr said we should give him 2 pills one day and 1 pill the
next and then in 2 weeks try to re evaluate. The goal is to get him to
the lowest possible dose of steroids.I wish steroids had no negative long term consequences because he is so much better on them and wish he could stay on them forever.
Chemo Discussion. We were supposed to start him on chemo at this visit (hydroxyurea) but considering the diarrhea, throwing up, etc Dr J says we should wait a week and then start him. We're concerned about the potential side effects of chemo but we understand from our reading that dogs handle it much better than humans and if all goes as expected he should take it and not feel sick. More to come on this when we start.....
Hi Mary, it's Laura from the PCS group on facebook. I'm so pleased to read that Jake got through his cyberknife treatment as well as he did.
ReplyDeleteYou might remember me telling you our Lexi had surgery to remove her meningioma last June (rather than cyberknife). Her recovery was really up and down but it did even out with time. It can be tough to watch but patience and strengh does pay off in the end.
Once Lexi came home post-surgery, she had a really good few days but a week or so later she developed a urinary tract infection which caused her to fit and set us back a few days. A month or two further down the line she then developed rather severe pancreatitis and was hospitalised for almost 3 weeks. She lost 6kgs and was really down in the dumps that a few times I wondered whether we had reached 'that time'. Thankfully her nurse at the Royal Veterinary College had really got to know Lexi and suggested that she was depressed being in a kennel environment so sent her home to us for a few days to see if she got any better. Thankfully she did (within minutes of being home she ate 1kg of roast chicken which was more than she'd managed in nearly 2 weeks at the hospital). Eating flushed out her system and a short while later her pancreatic levels were back to normal again.
At times it has been incredibly tough and I've questioned whether we are making the right & best choices for her but for every bad day or hiccup, we are given a week of great days.
We had always intended to start Lexi on chemo after her surgery but because of the hiccups we all decided it was best to give her body more time to recover. However, a bit earlier this year, we started seeing a few signs that the tumour may be returning (increased seizure activity, slight lameness in her front paw, less energy) so she started on hydroxyurea at the start of April. She has a 500mg pill every other day and so far she's doing really well. Aside from a day or two of mild sickness last week, there have been no side effects at all and I have seen a noticeable positive change in her energy levels too. Her blood work after 2 weeks was fine so we're really pleased with how it's going so far.
I really hope Jake continues to make such fantastic progress, keep strong!
Laura x