For anyone still following this thread, I have some updates. I know it's been a loooooong time, and it's probably bad form to be posting this reply to such an old thread, but I wanted to make sure that anyone who helped us before and was curious about our plight sees this. So I apologize for being so distant, but life often gets in the way with stuff like that.

On the bright side, the amantadine did help immensely with Beamer's crying out in pain episodes, and they did eventually disappear entirely. We then tapered off each of the pain meds one by one until he was totally off them with no signs of pain. That was probably back in April or maybe early May. Then we did four rounds of chemo at CSU, finishing up in late July.

Our lives changed in a big way in the first week of August, as my wife landed a big job promotion that required us to move from Colorado to Pennsylvania. Over the course of the following two months, Beamer's health started to decline.

Two weeks ago, Beamer started having episodes where she would like pass out and fall over, so I took her to the vet and they said she was quite anemic and was passing out due to the lack of oxygen in her bloodstream. They scanned her lungs but found no mets big enough to see on the scan. Her white blood cells were elevated, so they gave her some amoxicillin to see if that would help. It did, for a few days, and she was mostly back to normal without the anemia or the hypoxia.

On Friday (two days ago), my wife told me when I got home from work that Beamer had been very resistant to standing up and walking all day, and when she did walk, she was very wobbly. I looked and her gums and they were very pale, so I knew the anemia was back and things were not looking good. In addition, she was developing masses about 2 inches in diameter at different spots on her rib cage, some of which popped up in just a day or two. I made an appointment with my vet for Friday night and my wife and son kissed Beamer goodbye when I loaded her up in the car.

The vet said exactly what I thought she would-- that it was probably time to say goodbye. She would need a full blood transfusion to last more than 24 hours, and even then, they wouldn't be actually fixing the root cause of her problem. Essentially, the cancer was destroying her red blood cells and this was causing her anemia and thus hypoxia.

I was rubbing her head and scratching her ears when she fell asleep for the last time. She was a good dog and she will be missed, but she's finally at rest and without pain. Thanks for listening, and for offering your help.

Regards,
Jon Heese