So far, Hardee is hanging in there. We are still doing the daily chemo (cyclophosphamide) at home, and the IV chemo every 3 weeks. Two weeks ago, we did carboplatin as his second type of IV chemo. He handled that chemo better than the first chemo, epirubicin. The side effect from the carboplatin was diarrhea that turned bloody a week after getting the treatment, but I took HH to the holistic vet and bought some things to treat the diarrhea. We also got his blood work done while there, and Hardee was NOT neutropenic (low white blood cells) like he was after the epirubicin, so he did not have to have antibiotics again. Based on the above, I have decided to have carboplatin done again, instead of doxorubicin or epirubicin, for Hardee's next IV chemo. The only other side effect that I have seen from the chemo is hair loss. Hardee continues to lose tons of hair each day. I'd say he has lost over half his hair with quite a few bald spots in progress.
Hardee still sneezes a lot, a symptom of the tumor. Each sneeze has the potential to set off a bleed, so most of the time I hold my breath with each sneeze waiting to see if his nose bleeds. Since we had that bad bleed back in November, we haven't had another, thank goodness. I'll tell you later why I am so anxious about the sneezing. Hardee still has a lot of discharge from his nose and has post nasal drip. His right eye still waters, and just within the last couple days, his left eye has started to have a gelatinous discharge. It seems to me that the tumor is spreading more into the left side of his nasal passage now, but we have not CT scanned for over a month now.
While we were at the holistic vet in town here, I inquired about the dog that was from here also that was diagnosed with a nasal tumor over a month after Hardee that also did Cyber Knife radiation. I was shocked and saddened to hear that it had passed away a couple weeks ago. We are on very borrowed time with Hardee. The holistic vet also told me how Hardee would die. A bleed would set in that we cannot control, and he will have to be put down. Though I had suspected that would be the case, no one had the guts to tell me this before, and I am somewhat relieved to know the cause. This is why I wait anxiously with each sneeze to see the outcome.
On a totally different subject, I have addressed this problem before in my blog but there are still people out there who feel the need to write me privately with their opinions about the treatments Hardee is receiving or what we are letting Hardee do. For those people that think they know more about my dog than I do or that they know more than Hardee's numerous oncologists do, please feel free NOT to read my blog!!! At this most horrible time in my life, I am appalled that some people would write the things to me that they do. I truly do not care whether you agree with me about Hardee's treatments or about his continuing to compete. Hardee's oncologists have approved it, and it makes Hardee happy. What can possibly be wrong with that????
Hardee has cancer and is dying, but he is not sick. Except for diarrhea from the chemo that lasts for a couple days that we treat, Hardee is NOT sick. It is about quality of life with the little time Hardee has left and he loves to run agility and compete. To quote a friend from about a week ago, "I just had the good fortune to spend the day with Jennie, Jim and Hardee at an Agility Trial in Las Vegas! Hardee looks fantastic - - if you didn't know the details you would never suspect he has cancer. Happy, tail wagging, barking and jumping, weaving and teetering - he did it all! I hope someday if I have cancer,... someone loves me enough to let me keep doing what I love! The three of you are an inspiration!"
Not letting Hardee run agility or compete will NOT extend his life longer. The tumor grows whether he is doing what he loves or laying around on the sofa. Hardee is a working dog that loves to work. He does not do it to please us; he does it because he loves it. He whines and barks in his crate and is raring to go when he knows Jim is getting ready to run him. I don't know how to explain it further to you people who write me privately with your opinions, and I shouldn't have to.
We love Hardee with every fiber of our beings. He is what brings us joy, and he sustains us. We owe him everything, and try our hardest to give him the best life possible. We have been truly blessed to have him in our lives, even for this short time. As long as possible, it is, and will always be, all about Hardee.
Handsome Hardee
We are a patriotic family!
Face of Courage
Face of courage
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Monday, Dec. 6, 2010 - Finally home but going again
We are finally home after being on the road for 1.5 weeks. Hardee held up fantastically well, and I was very pleased with him. He got one double qualifying leg with his Dad in agility and lots of points. We had a good appointment with the new oncologist and started some new therapies. Then Hardee went to Long beach with his Mom where he competed in rally and obedience for 3 days. HH got his 7th, 8th and 9th double qualifying legs towards his Rally Advanced Excellent title. Just one more double qualifying leg to go! He qualified only one day in Open A obedience towards his Companion Dog Excellent title (CDX), but I was still pleased. He was too tired to hold his long sit at the end of the week, which kept disqualifying us, but I was still pleased. We need to qualify 2 more times for his CDX title.
When we got home last night, we started on the metronomic therapy drug that was compounded for Hardee at the pharmacy in AZ. Cyclophosphamide is a molecular therapy and is a form of chemo (chemotherapeutic medication) that interferes with the growth of cancer cells and slows their growth and spread in the body. I have to handle it with gloves, so it scares me to be giving it to my boy. Also, Hardee started on Peroxicam this morning which is in the NSAID class of drugs, but is being used as a supplementary drug in the treatment of his cancer. Peroxicam has been found to enhance the body's own ability to destroy cancer cells. There are side effects to both, so I have to watch him carefully.
Hardee's bleeding from his nose has slowed down markedly. We only got in trouble on Thursday from a judge in the obedience ring for the bleeding. Hardee sneezed his way through the rally and obedience rings all days, and I had to stop and wait for him while he went through numerous sneezes during our floor exercises. Hardee's nose still drains, but it is just blood tinged fluid now, instead of being total blood. Hardee also is losing his hair from chemo. His coat is thinner, but not anything that anyone else would really notice just yet, but he is a Portuguese shedding dog.
We leave Wed. night again for SoCal. Thursday, HH gets chemo again. This time he will get Carboplatin which should be easier on him than the last chemo. Friday, we compete in rally and obedience again, then head home Friday night late. Jim and Hardee have a local agility trial Sat & Sun here in Vegas. The schedule is too busy, and we'll just have to wait and see what HH feels up to doing. He's a hardy boy and is built to withstand (his registered name), but he'll let me know. I don't know what the new IV chemo will do to him, especially in conjunction with the chemo pills we started at home last night. Our paws are crossed here that he weathers this chemo storm well.
Until then, it is all about joy and all about Hardee!!
When we got home last night, we started on the metronomic therapy drug that was compounded for Hardee at the pharmacy in AZ. Cyclophosphamide is a molecular therapy and is a form of chemo (chemotherapeutic medication) that interferes with the growth of cancer cells and slows their growth and spread in the body. I have to handle it with gloves, so it scares me to be giving it to my boy. Also, Hardee started on Peroxicam this morning which is in the NSAID class of drugs, but is being used as a supplementary drug in the treatment of his cancer. Peroxicam has been found to enhance the body's own ability to destroy cancer cells. There are side effects to both, so I have to watch him carefully.
Hardee's bleeding from his nose has slowed down markedly. We only got in trouble on Thursday from a judge in the obedience ring for the bleeding. Hardee sneezed his way through the rally and obedience rings all days, and I had to stop and wait for him while he went through numerous sneezes during our floor exercises. Hardee's nose still drains, but it is just blood tinged fluid now, instead of being total blood. Hardee also is losing his hair from chemo. His coat is thinner, but not anything that anyone else would really notice just yet, but he is a Portuguese shedding dog.
We leave Wed. night again for SoCal. Thursday, HH gets chemo again. This time he will get Carboplatin which should be easier on him than the last chemo. Friday, we compete in rally and obedience again, then head home Friday night late. Jim and Hardee have a local agility trial Sat & Sun here in Vegas. The schedule is too busy, and we'll just have to wait and see what HH feels up to doing. He's a hardy boy and is built to withstand (his registered name), but he'll let me know. I don't know what the new IV chemo will do to him, especially in conjunction with the chemo pills we started at home last night. Our paws are crossed here that he weathers this chemo storm well.
Until then, it is all about joy and all about Hardee!!
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Wed., Dec 1, 2010 - We are still fighting!
We had our appointment with Dr. Ogilvie Monday in Carlsbad, CA. It went well, and Hardee had some tests run. His bloodwork came back normal, for the most part, and the good news is that he is no longer neutropenic so I can take him off the antibiotics. HH is still dehydrated from his chemo reaction, but we are working on that. He had chest radiographs done to see if the cancer had spread to his lungs, and it had not....YAY!...a bright side!
Dr O said that this cancer CANNOT be cured and wanted to make sure that I understood that. What we are focusing on now is quality of life, and if we can, controlling the tumor growth that is on a rampage. Nasal chondrosarcomas are slow to respond to therapy, and Hardee's seems really resistant to everything we have tried so far. Dr O doesn't agree that chemo should work within a week like what Dr V told me, and he doesn't want to CT again until we've done 2 rounds of chemo. Dr O thinks there are still some grenades that haven't been tried yet with Hardee that we can still lob at this tumor.
A surgeon came in to talk to me about debulking the tumor. If we got rid of as much as we can of the tumor, the chemo drugs might be more effective. The tumor would always regrow though because we can't surgically get all the tumor because of it's position. Hardee would be very disfigured, and it is a very hard surgery on dogs with a long recuperation time. They cut through the bones of his face and actually remove quite a bit of structure. I don't want to do that to Hardee and have some of his last days be about trying to recuperate. I asked the surgeon if he would do this surgery on his dog before he would do chemo, and he said No, that he would just do the chemo. That sealed my decision for no surgery.
The current plan now is to try to control the tumor growth with chemo and metronomic therapy. I haven't had time to research metronomic therapy just yet, but it is a molecular therapeutic. The drugs will be compounded for me by a pharmacy in Arizona and sent to the house. I have to wear gloves to handle it, and Hardee gets it daily. Next week we go for chemo again, but this round of chemo will be carboplatin, which is supposed to be easier on him. We might add in some more tumor suppression drugs later.
They also gave me an option to help control the bleeding from the nose, though currently we are having a good couple days of not much blood. The option to control bleeding is to surgically tie off the carotid arteries. That worried me immediately about how his brain, head, & face area would perfuse. He assured me that dog anatomy is different from human and that it would not affect blood supply to the head structure. I don't think we will consider that option, but we'll just have to see how this all plays out.
While we were at the agility trial this past weekend, there was an animal communicator there named Joy. We paid for a session, and I want to believe what she told us. There are things that I wanted to know. Here's some of the answers that she gave us. Yes, Hardee knows he is dying, and he has some anger over that. He thought he would be here another 10 years. He loves his life and fell in love with us when he first met us. Yes, he knows how much we love him and worries about us when he is gone. Yes, he wants to continue running agility for as long as his Dad will run him. He loves it, he says. He doesn't love the obedience and rally that I do with him, but I already knew that. I had Joy tell him that it was important to me and that if he would finish his RAE and CDX titles, I'd never make him do any more rally or obedience again.
The first thing that Hardee asked Joy when the session started was could he come back? He kept asking it she said because he enjoys his life so much. I had Joy tell him to do what he could to come back to us. Joy said that there was a reddish brown dog with a black mask who has come to guide him to the bridge. That would be my Cessna, my Rhodesian Ridgeback. Joy said she only sees the ones who come to guide the dying when their time to go is getting closer. We are still fighting though because Hardee said that he still wanted to fight. My Cessie was a patient girl, and she'll just have to wait for later to guide Hardee.
Hardee and I are in long Beach currently, competing in rally and obedience. So far, Hardee is doing great! We qualified and placed in all of our runs today. We got Hardee's 7th RAE leg and his 1st Open A obedience leg towards his CDX. We even placed 2nd, and also got the high scoring PWD in obedience award. Two more days to go, and I hope Hardee will continue to feel okay down here so we can get through this. He's held up fantastically with no white blood cells last week, being on the road for almost a week so far, 3 days of agility over the weekend, oncologist appointment Monday where they stuck a big needle into his bladder, and took blood and chest radiographs, and now this 3 day trial. My Handsome Hardee is indeed hardy!!
Today, it has been all about my joy and pride of qualifying with Hardee, and praising and treating him. It always rolls back around to the most important thing, because it is always all about Hardee!!
Dr O said that this cancer CANNOT be cured and wanted to make sure that I understood that. What we are focusing on now is quality of life, and if we can, controlling the tumor growth that is on a rampage. Nasal chondrosarcomas are slow to respond to therapy, and Hardee's seems really resistant to everything we have tried so far. Dr O doesn't agree that chemo should work within a week like what Dr V told me, and he doesn't want to CT again until we've done 2 rounds of chemo. Dr O thinks there are still some grenades that haven't been tried yet with Hardee that we can still lob at this tumor.
A surgeon came in to talk to me about debulking the tumor. If we got rid of as much as we can of the tumor, the chemo drugs might be more effective. The tumor would always regrow though because we can't surgically get all the tumor because of it's position. Hardee would be very disfigured, and it is a very hard surgery on dogs with a long recuperation time. They cut through the bones of his face and actually remove quite a bit of structure. I don't want to do that to Hardee and have some of his last days be about trying to recuperate. I asked the surgeon if he would do this surgery on his dog before he would do chemo, and he said No, that he would just do the chemo. That sealed my decision for no surgery.
The current plan now is to try to control the tumor growth with chemo and metronomic therapy. I haven't had time to research metronomic therapy just yet, but it is a molecular therapeutic. The drugs will be compounded for me by a pharmacy in Arizona and sent to the house. I have to wear gloves to handle it, and Hardee gets it daily. Next week we go for chemo again, but this round of chemo will be carboplatin, which is supposed to be easier on him. We might add in some more tumor suppression drugs later.
They also gave me an option to help control the bleeding from the nose, though currently we are having a good couple days of not much blood. The option to control bleeding is to surgically tie off the carotid arteries. That worried me immediately about how his brain, head, & face area would perfuse. He assured me that dog anatomy is different from human and that it would not affect blood supply to the head structure. I don't think we will consider that option, but we'll just have to see how this all plays out.
While we were at the agility trial this past weekend, there was an animal communicator there named Joy. We paid for a session, and I want to believe what she told us. There are things that I wanted to know. Here's some of the answers that she gave us. Yes, Hardee knows he is dying, and he has some anger over that. He thought he would be here another 10 years. He loves his life and fell in love with us when he first met us. Yes, he knows how much we love him and worries about us when he is gone. Yes, he wants to continue running agility for as long as his Dad will run him. He loves it, he says. He doesn't love the obedience and rally that I do with him, but I already knew that. I had Joy tell him that it was important to me and that if he would finish his RAE and CDX titles, I'd never make him do any more rally or obedience again.
The first thing that Hardee asked Joy when the session started was could he come back? He kept asking it she said because he enjoys his life so much. I had Joy tell him to do what he could to come back to us. Joy said that there was a reddish brown dog with a black mask who has come to guide him to the bridge. That would be my Cessna, my Rhodesian Ridgeback. Joy said she only sees the ones who come to guide the dying when their time to go is getting closer. We are still fighting though because Hardee said that he still wanted to fight. My Cessie was a patient girl, and she'll just have to wait for later to guide Hardee.
Hardee and I are in long Beach currently, competing in rally and obedience. So far, Hardee is doing great! We qualified and placed in all of our runs today. We got Hardee's 7th RAE leg and his 1st Open A obedience leg towards his CDX. We even placed 2nd, and also got the high scoring PWD in obedience award. Two more days to go, and I hope Hardee will continue to feel okay down here so we can get through this. He's held up fantastically with no white blood cells last week, being on the road for almost a week so far, 3 days of agility over the weekend, oncologist appointment Monday where they stuck a big needle into his bladder, and took blood and chest radiographs, and now this 3 day trial. My Handsome Hardee is indeed hardy!!
Today, it has been all about my joy and pride of qualifying with Hardee, and praising and treating him. It always rolls back around to the most important thing, because it is always all about Hardee!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)