Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat

Hello Sweet Friends-

Well Yesterday was our Treatment Re-group appointment with the UCD team- we had some good news and some bad news.  The Good News is the elbow and neck tumor's are looking very good- no growth, some shrinkage, and total stagnation of the cells and the skin has healed completely- no more ulceration's.  The cancer still HAS NOT spread to lungs or any other organ at this point and Jojo can come off of his Liver meds and Anti-inflammatory meds.  The Bad News is he weighed in at almost 90 lbs- this is about 10 lbs more than normal which means there may be some adema or swelling going on some where AND the tumor on his inner thigh has grown about 1 cm- this means that the Chemo we've had 5 doses of is not working on this area. We went through a couple different options considering we have just rounded the 6 month mark and we chose to go through another round of Palliative Radiation treatment for the thigh because it seems to have worked SO WELL on the other 2 tumor areas.  We did not initially radiate this 3rd tumor because there was not assurances that it was the same type as the others, but they know feel confident that it is in fact the same type and it's Histiocidic(SP) and the radiation obviously works better than the chemo in this particular situation.  So, we start radiation again on Tuesday of next week. We will start out with a series of 3 treatments, but will review as a team after 2 and see how things are responding.  I still feel very good about the choices we made including to not amputate originally and I am just in Love with our team at UCD.  Jojo has been having some serious melancholy days, sluggish and kind of quiet but all in all he has been a trooper!  I know he will take this next round like a champ and we'll just go a day at a time.  

Now on the Charlie front- we chose to have him seen as well yesterday  UCD General practice, mainly because he has started this chronic panting, and he's loosing serious muscle strength in his hind quarter. The Dr. took some blood panels, urine sample, and created a body map of all his lumps and bumps- We are waiting for his blood results, but everythign else came back fine and of no concerns. So, the Dr. said at this point he's getting up there in age ( aren't we all! ) and his panting maybe caused by his sever gum disease- Oh my never even thought of that!  So they said if his blood results come back also normal they would suggest a good teeth cleaning which would mean putting him under... on brother!  Here comes the days of  care taking of my Senior Citizens

Much Love to you all and I'll keep you updated on jojo's next journey. 

Friends- another quick update!  

Yesterday was Jojo's UCD appointment for our second series of Radiation treatments- this time on the thigh tumor.  This appointment took over 6 hours for some reason and boy was he worn out by the time we left.  The team also decided to aspirate one of the bigger bumps on his hip- even though we have all felt it was one of the benign growths like all the lumps and bumps over the rest of his body0 they wanted to be 100% sure.   We will go back next week for the second treatment in this series, I sure hope this works as successfully as it worked on the other two.  e

Charlie got all his blood, and urine test results and everything looks good.  The Dr. would still encourage us to move forward with x-rays and a work up on his heart murmur and if everything comes back within normal standards they would like to put him under for teeth cleaning.  John and I talked about it and we decided that what we know in our gut is that he is just an "old boy"- he's in good health and although he probably should have a teeth cleaning, at the age of 12.5 we will just live with his bad breath and try other ways of helping him wear off the stench  I guess I'm just feeling like we shouldn't fix what's not broke- now that we know for sure... I appreciate the Doctors want to be completely thorough, but I think if there was truly something wrong it would have shown up in the blood or urine..

Anyhow folks, that's it for now, here's a few updated pics- Jojo back from UCD + the Tumor they marked.  And Charlie waiting for his brother to get done and hit the road home.

Love to you All

Mia and the Yellow Boys!

Hi Friends- Another quick update while I have a break in my workday.  

Thank you all for you words of support and positive reinforcement- Last week I just totally hit a brick wall and was feeling so defeated. I read all your posts and after I was done crying I felt so blessed to have you-- so Thank you again!

We were supposed to take Joe back to UCD today, but over the weekend he seemed to get a little pep back in his step, and his eyes seemed to have a little sparkle back and the thigh tumor seems to be drying out and getting a little bit better. So, I decided that I didn't want to interrupt the momentum and sent the Dr. a note saying we were going to take this week off.  I moved our apt. to next week so Joe could just keep focusing on his healing and not be interrupted by needles and shavings of his lovely fur.   I've been racking my brain about what home made contraption I can build to help him maneuver our staircase, but so far I've come up short- lol.  We've tried to just quietly let him sleep down stairs as we sneak out and go to bed, but every time without fail he will make his way up the stairs to sleep with the fam... the stairs wear him out but he's not about to sleep all by himself downstairs- Bless his heart 

A couple photo's from last week when the poor guy was just down and out.

Until next time- Much Love to you all

Mia and the Yellow Boys!