Hi all,

A little update for you.  Our poor Luther Bear has had a pretty rough 24 hours and I ended up taking him to the vets last night for a check up because I'd taken his temperature and it was just over 40 degrees.  He had been fine over the weekend following a few down days last week, but yesterday he seemed to be really quiet and subdued and barely moved all day.  The vets weren't worried and said that he's showing all of the characteristic signs of secondary side effects from the chemo so they've given us a two week course of antibiotics and some tablets to help the gastro problems he continues to suffer from.  I'm hoping that when the meds start to kick in over the next 24-48 hours he'll perk up a bit.  They warned us that this 7-14 day post chemo is common for these symptoms so we just need keep him comfortable and look after him ... although not too much because we know how he likes to act the Lord and be hand fed! 

If anything, this has just confirmed our decision to not put him through any more chemo.

In the meantime, here are a few pics for you.  The first is Roxy on squirrel watch.  A few seconds after I took it, she charged down the end of the garden having sited a victim!  The second is my amazing boy on Saturday when he was feeling particularly bright and perky and the last one proves that even tripods can roll in fox poo! 

xxx

Well, we've had some improvement in the last 24 hours, which is great.  According to hubby, he started to move about a bit yesterday afternoon and when I got home, he was definitely brighter and he'd been outside for a wee and poo (the latter being much better than of late so the gastro tablets are obviously working).  I took his temperature and that was in the normal range and he got up for a little dinner.  He didn't want to join Roxy on a walk, but that was ok.

This morning he got up again for breakfast, although didn't eat much, but did have some and the fact he got up was good and hubby was going to give him a little food at lunchtime to work on the little and often basis.

We saw the same team as his surgeon on Monday night when I took him in and they're absolutely sure it's chemo side effects.  They spoke to one of the chemo nurses as well who felt the same.  He's been given antibiotics anyway so even if he has picked up a little infection, that will kill that.

Fingers crossed my bear continues to improve.

xxx

Hi tripawd friends,

I'm afraid that after the last positive post, things took a turn for the worse and our darling boy has been hospitalized since Saturday.

That morning, I coaxed him up for breakfast by playing with Roxy and the intrigue was too much for him to not come and investigate, which I was so chuffed about, but as he stood watching us I noticed his damp nose.  Thinking it was a healthy glow, I gave it a little wipe and it was in fact blood.  So off we went to the vets and blood tests later showed that all of his platelet and blood cell counts were dangerously low.  In fact, it was only on Tuesday that we realized how close we'd come to losing him. 

He has had blood tests daily and the good news is that his counts are slowly increasing.  As of yesterday, his white blood cells were back to normal, platelets were increasing, but still off what they should have been and he was still anemic.  The latter remains a concern as he's not had a bleed from his nose since Sunday so although we're hoping this is just a slow recovery, there is the possibility that he could be bleeding from elsewhere.  They did an ultrasound on his abdomen yesterday and that was clear.

Our consultant remains "cautiously optimistic" and we're hoping that he can come home over the weekend.  There is little else they can do for him medically as it's just time his body needs to continue to create the new cells.

Please keep your fingers, toes and paws crossed for him.  Luther has been on such a difficult journey and throughout all of this we've forgotten that it was only 12 weeks ago that he had an op on his remaining front leg for elbow dysplasia although that seems like such a long time ago now.

We just desperately want him home.  We're praying that he gets through this, but we have made the decision that IF his blood cell count drops again and he needs to be re-hospitalized, we will most likely make the heart breaking decision to just let him go.  There comes a point when you just have to stop, assess and make the decision that's best for the dog and putting him through another visit with more needles, feeling utterly rubbish and generally unhappy is not what I want for him.

Let's hope we don't reach that stage though.

xxx