Jake is 10 and doing great!

Jake turned 10 years old and is doing great !!!

On July 8 Jake turned 10 years old and his birthday was even more meaningful than ever this year. It's now been five months since he got sick and three and a half months since he had cyberknife radiation. It's been a rough road but Jake is still smiling and happy and we cannot be more grateful.

He has resumed some interest in playing with his toys and is extremely engaged with us and happy to be 'part of the pack' everyday. He's had some setbacks with urinary accidents as we taper his steroid dose down but generally tolerating it really well. He's now taking .25mg of dexamethasone daily down from needing 1mg daily.

Next stop chemo...... Will update more soon.

1st post- cyberknife follow up doctor visit

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.....

Had to mention this. We're pleased to say Jake is back to some of his old tricks. Jake always used to place himself right in from of the tv staring at us as if to say "hello don't ignore me, stop looking at the tv and look at me!!" He's still the same old Jake :)

6 days post cyberknife

Jake is now 6 days post cyberknife. I see he's been reporting how he feels himself  but I want to weigh in on how he's doing too. We're starting to be concerned that the tumor is still active. He's able to walk straight but is still leaning to the left and voraciously hungry- which could be the tumor or the steroids. He is also moaning every time he lays down as if to say "ugh.....i am so sick of this and just want to get comfortable and can't". I'm not sure if it's because he's in pain.

Also at times his limbs (especially the front left paw) gets stiff and crooked and he can't seem to straighten it out. We massage him and it seems to help but this was happening just before radiation when he was at his worse so we're not happy to see this happening again. Strangely this only seems to happen when he's very tired at the beginning or end of the day.

His personality is still not quite the same as before. He wants to be off by himself laying in the hallway alone a lot. I don't know if he's tired, in pain, etc. This might not seem like a big thing but his personality before was that he was literally involved in every single conversation and activities we did in the house. He was never one of those dogs who just sat by himself. He was always the center of the house. It's weird to say but even though he's here we still miss him.