Last night and this morning have been especially emotionally difficult.  First, seeing Whitney lose Ellie so suddenly to this cancer as she had just been in the midst of planning out their trip for the next medical intervention and doing such an amazing job turning a negative into a positive was heartbreaking.  Not only do I feel horrible for the pain she must be in right now, but it's also a stark reminder that this cancer can act quickly.... no matter how many hurdles we jump through trying to keep them living a good quality of life for as long as possible.   The incidents I've seen where it hits the spine are really troubling.  We all pay attention to those chest X-rays yet Dr.'s don't really monitor the spine and, from what I've read, it'd be difficult to pick something up there even if they did.  I feel like I could be where Whitney is right now at any time and I'm not ready.  I guess I'll never be ready.

Honor has also been favoring his good leg.  Every since the running incident, things just have not gone back to that peak level of improvement he had.  If anything, I feel like there is a gradual slide downward whereas we were supposed to see continued improvement up to the 2 week mark after radiation.  Things aren't back to being as bad as they were before I brought him in for the radiation, but they are more similar to how he was doing after that first zoledronate infusion and I'm worried they may continue going downhill.  That is, of course, putting the amputation question back in the front of my mind whereas I had hoped so badly for at LEAST 4 months reprieve of having to make that decision.  I dared even hope for more, but 4 months was the lowest I had set the bar.  We are only out 1 week.  I have now also lost the ability to do any vaccines that require live tumor cells.   I am now stuck in the "WHAT IF" my husband had been more careful and the running didn't happen.  How much better might he be doing right now?  How much better might I also be doing if I could have continued to enjoy seeing him be so happy?

Add to that, I got an email last night that all of the amenities (tennis courts, basketball court etc. at our neighborhood lake (which has become our new daily morning outing)  are going to be under complete demolition and reconstruction for the next 3 months starting July 31.  This removes at least 3/4 of the walking area I had been using for Honor and essentially all of the flat ground.  We can still go sit out at the front of the lake but it certainly isn't going to be quiet anymore and we have to go down and up a hill with very little level ground for walking.  There may be limited parking for me to be able to get him down the ramp since the lower parking lot will be taken up by construction vehicles and everyone using the fitness center and pool will be parking in the limited spots in the upper lot where I normally get him out.  I've lived in this neighborhood for 20 years and this has to happen now of all times?!  Trying to think of other places we could go, but it's difficult because any I can think of have the possibility of other dogs around and maybe, even worse, off leash dogs (even though they aren't supposed to be).  Honor has never handled other dogs approaching him well and we've had several scary instances over the years even in our own neighborhood where dogs have been loose and come after us.  Several little dogs which poor Honor was very patient with as they nipped at his legs and the owners took far too long to round them up but also some larger dogs.  When it's larger dogs, he feels like he needs to protect me. One time, one lady was walking 2 large dogs and they got out of her hand and went charging after him.  He growled and pounced on one of them and I was stuck trying to restrain him on  the leash while she and her husband ran over to get the dogs.  At any rate, he is wary of some other dogs  now (with good reason) and I'm especially trying to avoid any incidents under these circumstances and now that he'll be doing chemo.

Speaking of which, first chemo is this afternoon.  Kind of wondering where this puts us if we are doing chemo now and we end up having to amputate far sooner than imagined since chemo is supposed to be after amputation but I'll ask.  Any other tips or questions I should ask?  Is it better for a dog to eat or not eat beforehand or no difference?  I was leaning towards not having him eat just in case they want to X-ray his wrist after I let them know about the running incident and subsequent not doing so well.  

Honor is zonked out right now sleeping (half on me) at moment.  So far so good as far as the chemo.  He ate his dinner (and, true to form, probably would have eaten 5 more) and seems ok.  I gave him a dose of cerenia just in case.  

And you are so right.  Worrying didn’t change the course of what happened.  I really do need to remind myself in future to worry about things when/if they happen. It’s one thing to be prepared for different scenarios but quite another to waste time endlessly obsessing over possible worst case scenarios.  All that ends up doing is taking away my mental energy in the present….which is where I’m trying hard to spend more time.  

So …no fracture and chemo round 1 complete. No other crises going on.  I guess I’ll call it a good day in the context of things and certainly in comparison to what I was expecting earlier in the day.  

Bit of a rough night. Honor woke up around 2 am dry heaving, drooling and clearly having very bad nausea.  I took him outside where he promptly started eating grass despite my efforts to get him to stop. Then he laid down, looking unwell and didn’t want to come in so my husband and I spent the next couple hours taking turns sitting out there with him.  I had given him cerenia as prescribed after dinner  but noticed the dose was about 25 mg low for his weight.  I had some very low dose tabs here as it had been prescribed for one of our cats before so I gave him a little more. Not sure if that’s what helped but it finally seemed to pass and he came back inside.  
 
I woke up late and, unfortunately, think I will have to miss taking him to the lake this morning.  I’m not even sure he would feel up to it…but guessing he would try to go to make me happy.  Will try to think of some other special activity to do today.  It’s tough to do anything outside in FL this time of year if you don’t do it early in the morning! 

I just called their nurses because he really hasn’t been acting right. It’s vague, but be has been very lethargic to the point of not even raising his head when the other dogs were barking or people coming in the door.  Not drinking water.  Did take his pill pockets with gabpentin and the flagyl they had prescribed. He had some mild diarrhea yesterday morning but, since then he hasn’t even gone to the bathroom so I’m a bit worried about that.  The last time he even went outside was 8 am this morning and I haven’t been able to convince him to go out again since.

The nurse ran everything by the Dr and they really don’t think it can be the chemo.  For one, they said the effects wouldn’t show up so quickly.  For another, they also gave him anti nausea stuff along with the chemo.  They say cerenia or flagyl wouldn’t be causing this.  She said they also erred on the side of caution with him and gave him a very low dose of chemo for his size…if anything, maybe too low she said.  She called in an additional nausea med for me to add to the cerenia and said I could withhold the flagyl to see if he goes to the bathroom and withhold his galliprant …which I already didn’t give to him yesterday. 

Looking up side effects of medications and I think it could be the Flagyl.  I’m going to stop giving it and am not sure why they wanted him on this medication vs a newer anti diarrheal I asked about that is specifically for chemo that did not seem to have potential serious side effects. Wish I had done my research before giving him last night and this morning dose of this medication.