Well, I've had better days.

Today was my day to go for my next dactinomycin injection.  Dr. Hathorn likes to follow it with a thirty minute intravenous infusion so it means that I have to stay for a while.  Well, this morning, the boss man also had a doctor's appointment so he thought that he'd just drop me off before his appointment then pick me up once he was done.  Well, in theory that sounded okay.  In practice, it turned out to be kind of a lousy day.

See, the problem started early this morning.  I had something stuck in my throat and a spent some time coughing.  No biggy.  Dog make hacking noises all the time.  Even the little bit that I spit up wasn't cause for concern, or so I thought.  Well, being the "dutiful" boss man that he is, he mentions this when making arrangements to leave me there.  Oh yeah, and he says that my bum might be getting a little worse.  Anyway, I go with Candy and he goes to have his head examined (or maybe just his eyeballs - whatever, this is about me, not him).

So, as I hear it, not long after his appointment starts and he is saying stuff like "#1 is better" and "E V G T H", he gets a call from Dr. Hathorn.  Seems that my lymph nodes are slightly enlarged and she wants to do a CBC.  Well, you might remember this time last week I had one and my blood work looked great.  Today my red cells were a little depressed and my neutrophils, lymphocytes and reticulocytes were all a bit elevated. 

Blah, blah, blah.  I just wanted to say give me the juice and be done with it already.  I want to go home and take a nap.

But no, Dr. Hathorn is concerned and since I was coughing this morning, she wants to do a chest x-ray to make sure that my lungs are clear.  She calls the boss man again to see if that was okay.

Okay, fine, I think to myself.  Those are quick and painless.  Take your picture and give me the juice so I can go home.

Well, I'm happy to say, that my x-ray looked perfectly normal.  Sadly, the one last stumbling block to my going home is that Dr. Hathorn wanted to consult with my oncologist, Dr. Harris.  Problem is, she only works from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm.  Dr. Hathorn asked the boss man if it would be okay to keep me until after she talks to Dr. Harris.  Personally, I think she just wanted the chance to spend the day with me, but either way, it turned out that I didn't end up getting my injection and my infusion until 4:35 pm EST.  Which meant that I wasn't finished until 5:05 pm EST.  Which meant that I was at the Animal Care Clinic from 8:30 am EST to 5:20 pm EST (after talking with Dr. Hathorn yet again) which is a very long time.

So, you may be wondering the outcome of all of this.  Well, as you know if you are a faithful reader, I've gone through a number of different drugs in my quest to beat this cancer (DIE CANCER!  DIE!).  The truth is, there is not an endless supply of different drugs that I can take to kill this cancer and if we can keep the bumps at bay by continuing the more frequent injections (every two weeks) then that is ultimately better. So for the time being, I am going to continue on dactinomycin.  The bosses are going to be careful the check me every day and keep Dr. Hathorn and Dr. Harris updated on any changes.  Assuming that there are no changes, I'll go back to see Dr. Hathorn in ten days for a recheck and to get some blood work done.  If there isn't much change, then I'll go back on the 19th for another dactinomycin injection. If things get worse, then I'll be on my way back to Milford, OH. 

Well, that about wraps it up for me.  Spending a whole day at the veterinary office really wears a dog out.  I'm going to sign off and snuggle my boss ma'am. 

Have a great night everyone!

TTFN,
Little Bit