Hello Friends- Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving- we sure immersed ourselves in Family which is what we ALL needed.  Today was our visit back to UCD (after our Emergency room scare) and we had good news today.  The cancer has still not spread to the lungs and all 3 tumor sites do show small reduction of size.  The Elbow tumor area is starting to heal and we have all decided that we will give Jojo 1 more week OFF from treatment to give the skin as much healing time as we can before we start round 2.   We will head back next Monday and start our second session of Chemo and determine if the skin is ready for more radiation or not.  They will also take blood samples to review his  overall wellness; Also he is down about 4lbs over the last three weeks which means my new food is working in leaning him out.

Today is a good day! You'll all be happy to know that I have completely let go of the furniture rules- the only thing I insist on is a sheet under Jojo because of the tumor weeping and bleeding, but other than that you can see both boys now have full reign pretty much of all the furniture...

 Stay tuned I'll post again in a couple days.

Mia

Hello Friends- boy it's been a while since I've chatted with you.  Jojo and I had our update visit yesterday at UCD and all in all it was pretty good news.  The elbow tumor is still healing from the outside, the skin is starting to dry out and scab over  and poor Jojo is forever assigned to the Cone so he doesn't get at it and get it infected again.   We have all decided that we will let the tumor site heal as much as possible before we look at doing anymore radiation. All three tumor sites do seem to still be reacting to the radiation as they have gone down even a little more since our last visit.  We completed 1 more round of Chemo and that sure wiped him out, but now we have 3 weeks off from any treatment- that will be a nice break. 

I did have a major scare last week with Charlie though; Last Wednesday night as I was feeding the boys their dinner, I "of course" turned my back for about 10 seconds and when I looked back Charlie was in Jojo's bowl lapping up as much food as he could.  I really didn't think too much of it b/c they are on the same food now UNTIL I woke up to Charlie vomiting at the top of the stairs at 3am.  I then thought OMG Charlie must have eaten some of Jojo's medication (antibiotics/Inflammatory) and after I got done cleaning up all the vomit we both went back to bed- I thought to myself phew, that was a close call.  Then I get a call from my husband the next day while I'm at work and he says "Charlie has been shitting ALL day- he has the runs and I couldn't get to the door fast enough so it's all over the dining room"  Oh MY!!!!  my husband was so freaked out he took Charlie to the Emergency room and $350.00 later they couldn't find a thing wrong with him.  So, needless to say I put charlie on some white rice and chicken for a couple days and gave him the anti diahrrea meds the vet sent home and 5 days later he's good as new. LOL- I can laugh about it now, but it sure was not funny last week especially since my husband is so OVER the vet offices, the bills, the dreaded cone, the cleaning the tumor site 2x per day..he is just over it all!   I sure am glad we seem to be on a little bit of an upswing with Jojo, his personality and energy level is back to normal and I can see he just feels better overall.   I hope you all are doing well and getting better prepared for the holiday's than I am- I will be sure to write again soon and include a new happy picture of Jojo on the mend...at least for now.

Take Care-

Mia

So glad Joe continues to do well and yes, the 3 week break will give you and him the time to breathe easy for a bit, and good timing with Christmas coming up......
Sorry about Charlie's unfortunate experience but very glad he is better and back to himself......Our pups ALWAYS seem to keep us on our toes, for sure!

I love, love, love all the pics you post of your guys and these latest 2 are precious.....the puppy pic looks so much like my Polly when she was a lil' pup.....takes me down memory lane more than you can imagine.......

Looking forward to your updates on JoJo, and keeping you both in my thoughts......
Bonnie & Angel Polly

Hello Friends- I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday- I tried logging on a couple days ago and it seems the page was having problems so It's been a while since I've posted.  We have all been enjoying our "break" from treatment and Jojo has been spunky as ever. I can tell that although he is still on a daily routine of meds, he feels so much better than he has in a while.  We have our next Consultation apt. on Monday the 29th and we will decide at that time what our next phase of treatment is going to look like. Also for Christmas Jojo got a custom built ramp from my brother-in-law who was feeling so bad that I was having to lift him up and down in the truck, so today we tried it out and Jojo took to it like a pro.  It was such a thoughtful thing to get and it made me cry with appreciation.  Also- the new cone has been a life saver, Jojo doesn't mind it at all and it's so much easier for him to sleep in.  The last thing I'll say is that the elbow tumor has REALLY changed in size and density- it's incredible, the skin is continuing to heal nicely from the radiation and the only bummer still is that the hair is now falling out like crazy.  I thought you might enjoy a couple updated photos'.  We wish you all a very happy new year and want to THANK YOU for continuing this journey with us- we love to know your out there.