Good News

Leo had been acting a bit funny over the past few days - a little grouchier, a little more particular than usual.  And a lot naughtier outside.  We were concerned - a change in personality is one of the first indications that something is wrong.  We had both taken to checking his lymph nodes every day - hoping to not feel anything, but expecting the worst.  He had a checkup on Thursday (10/25).  I was nervous - I did not want to have bad news.

Nothing to report - which is a good thing

I have, literally, nothing (about Leo) to report.
That's great!
We graduated from chemo on September 8. After the hospitalization and the bad reaction, we finished up with a few treatments of cytoxan, and we're done!

Home

Leo's come back home, finally.  He's still sick, however - but he's eating.  Which is good.

Hospitalized

Leo is now hospitalized for the second day.  This is a reaction to the chemo.

Very Sick Boy

Leo is very, very ill. The latest round of chemo, the doxyrubicin, is really taking its toll on him.  Last night, we were at the vet getting fluids and some meds.  Tonight, Leo is in the hospital, getting IV fluids and anti-nausea meds.

Bump

Chemo 12 today for Leo.  This is the tough one - it's the Doxyrubicin, and it's the one that's the hardest on Leo's system.  On top of this, his allergies have been brutal the last few days - he has, in fact, been scratching himself raw.

Sneezing

Bit used to sneeze.  The sound and the rythm were totally unique, and totally him.  However, it's weird - I've noticed that the sound of the Verizon installers doing something on the utility pole outside makes almost the same noise.  It was both alarming and soothing to hear it.

Guilt

I am very very sad about Bit.  Paralyzed, to be honest.  I have a difficult time sleeping, a difficult time waking, and a difficult time doing anything.  While I'm sad that he's gone, and I know that he was in a very bad state, I still feel guilt.  I feel that I let him down, that I gave up on him.

The price we pay

They give so much, yet ask so little.  Food and water, kindness and companionship.  And it's returned with unconditional love and constant devotion.  But it isn't free.

A very empty house

Bitter is gone. I took him in today, and it was critical.  He was failing, and it was time.

Bit

I'm very, very concerned about Bit.  He was vomiting everything up on Monday and Tuesday, then with the help of the anti-nausea meds he stopped, but wasn't eating enough.  Yesterday I gave him an appetite stimulant. He ate, but he seems very very unhappy.  He's hiding now, under the bed.

Chemo, round 3

Leo goes in for the last of his treatments for Round 3 of chemo.  This one is the one he doesn't like (and we don't like, either).  This one makes him ill.  But he'll soldier on, because he's fearless and completely trusts me. Bit, on the other hand, is convinced that I'm taking him to be skinned alive and the only thing to do is to fight for all he's worth.  Because Bit is a cat, and cats don't trust.

Back and Forth

Seems like I'm talking a lot about Bit and not a lot about Leo.  Well, that's because Leo is doing great!  He went to the vet last week and everything was great, he took the chemo fine, he's doing great, his bloodwork is great, he's happy and shedding like a champ.
Bit, on the other hand, is a whole story.

Slumber Party!

Everyone's coming over for a slumber party!

Bit is a disaster - and that's a good thing

I was afraid that Bitter wouldn't make it to this point - the first post-chemo checkup.  It was bad - to the point that I was worried when I would leave home that he may or may not be up and about when I got home.  He was very thin (around 9.5lbs) and didn't look good.  Really, he was just lying around - not that 12 year old cats do much more than just lie around, but more than usual.

Hot

So it's 96°F outside today. Not good for puppies or for cats, that's for sure.  Leo's apparently not too happy today - a little anti-social and grumpy.  Bit, on the other hand, is being very social (laying on my hands while I type).  Granted, he doesn't have to go outside - which on a day like today, is a good thing.

Best day ever (Part 2400)

The great thing about dogs is that they live for right now.  I mean, RIGHT NOW (i just spent way too much time looking for this Far Side cartoon of a bunch of dogs in a lifeboat with a huge bag of food, voting "Who says we should eat all of the food now", and the caption about why dogs don't survive shipwrecks.  Couldn't find it.  Hilarious. Trust me.)  Leo doesn't really know he's sick - i think he knows he didn't feel well (ok, more time on the couch) and now feels better (ok, let's get off the couch!).

Working?

I think the cat's chemo may be working, albeit slowly.  Well, if a few days is slowly.

Leo finishes round 2, Bit starts

Leo finished round 2 of chemo on Saturday - his WBC was up to normal levels, so he did the last of the 4 drug cocktail that should, we hope, put him in remission.  Now he has 2 weeks (and then some) off to recover, let his body heal and to let him be a happy Leo.  Of course, right now, he's not so much a happy Leo.  This last round was tougher on him, and it has taken some of his appetite - and caused some hair to fall out! 
Actually, there's both hair falling out (I find it around my house, in little clumps, when he stays here), but it also grows back very slowly.  In his initial diagnosis, he had his belly shaved for an ultrasound.  It's still rather stubbly, and isn't growing back quickly.  He has some bald patches on his legs, as well, and those are staying that way.
More troubling is his lack of energy for food.  It's not a true loss of appetite - he grubs, begs, and still eats, but with much less enthusiasm than he had before.  Bally is not his favorite thing, anymore - he needs something more than just the tricky-treat ball to keep him going now.  I hope his gusto for food returns - or at least his love of Bally.  He loved it so much that he used to take it to bed with him - both his bed (allowed) and my bed (not allowed).
Today, Bit started his chemo - Prednisone (well, prednisolone, a better-absorbed breakdown product of prednisone) and Leukoran, a mild, well-tolerated and every-other-day oral chemotherapy drug.  Let's hope that does some good, and that it (slowly) gets his tumor(s) to shrink.  I had to make a call on what protocol to use, and this seemed like the best for him, given his age, current strength, tumor load, and potential side effects.
See, this was the decision i had to make - IV chemo, powerful oral chemo, or this route (or nothing at all, really).  IV chemo was a non-starter - once a week in the office with needles - not this cat.  That would have done nothing for his quality of life, and his personality simply does not allow for that sort of vet commitment.  With Leo, it's easy - he goes in, they give him chicken, stick him with a few needles, give him more chicken, and he comes out happy.  Hell, he likes the people, the car ride, the new neighborhood, all of it, so to him, it's not traumatic.  Just putting Bit in his carrier is a whole production, and causes whining, crying, pooping, hissing, and all manner of complaining.  The car ride makes him ill, nervous and uncomfortable. The vet office is terrifying, and he doesn't like being restrained, let alone poked and prodded.  He's destroyed many an exam room, and the cat has been politely un-invited from several of the vets in Brooklyn (for real - he was asked not to come back un-anesthetized to several vets. When I say he's bad, he's bad).
The powerful oral chemo was probably the most aggressive possible treatment, but there was one bad side effect - if it worked really well, it was going to kill him.  Because the tumor on his colon is rather large and involved, if it were affected too quickly, his colon could lose containment, causing waste to leak (in large amounts) into his abdomen.  This would quickly lead to sepsis, and then death, with essentially nothing I could do about it.  The Leukeran, while still chemo, is much milder - so much so it may not actually do anything to the tumor- but it will not kill him.  The action is much slower, so that as the tumor is (hopefully) destroyed, his colon will have a chance to heal, maintaining it's integrity.  Of course, if it is not effective, the tumor could cause his colon to rupture... So it's really a question of how to approach this.  The prednisone/nisolonononone will definitely have some effect on the tumor, shrinking it some.  Hopefully, with some luck, the Leukeran will do it's thing, and his tumor load will, for a time, decrease. And it's well tolerated, which is important.  So while the most aggresive things (surgery, IV chemo) aren't being done, what is being done is best for his quality of life.  Again, that sucky phrase.
Although my quality of life is going to seriously suffer.  This cat becomes a monster on prednisone - the appetite, the thirst, the activity. But if that's what it takes to get a year of Bitter, well, i'm on board.

Also, anyone need a website?

The cat

Leo isn't the only furry one that's around. There's another dog, Luna:

Luna is a nut.  She marches to her own band - not just a drummer.  She's slightly agoraphobic, loves cats, and doesn't like food.  So, yeah.  She's also 12 and, while a complete lunatic, healthy.

Then there is the cat, Bitter.  Bitter is also 12-ish (dunno, got him when he was about a year and a half in the summer of 2001).
Bit used to be fat, lazy, and angry. Recently, he's become skinny, lazy and angry.  Over the past 6 weeks or so, his weight loss, lack of eating, and digestive issues have become a problem.  He, too, had an elevated white blood cell count as well (which Leo had, initially).  3 courses of antibiotics, some x-rays and a bit of sedation later (he doesn't do the vet well, among other things), and no changes.  So, back to VERG (we're they're best customers) and some more tests.  And then the news came - Bit has cancer, too.  He has a tumor on his colon, and it may have started to spread.
This has been hard to take.  First, knowing that Leo is sick.  Then finding out that Bit, my little angry one, is terminal - it's been a difficult week.  Bit isn't a candidate for chemo, since he's rather "fractious" and tends to bite, scratch, scream, poop, pee, and destroy things when the vet tries to take blood, let alone injecting drugs.  He simply can't do it, personality-wise, and it's probably too far along to really help.  So it's quality-of-life time for the angry one.
And that sucks.  Quality Of Life.  Living through that applied to humans, it's a euphemism for a painless (relatively, anyway) death in fairly short order.  My boy only has a little time left. And that's hard to take.  He's sat on my hands for all of my grad school papers, been with me through some very tough times and has kept me sane when I didn't think I would be able.  Yeah, he's a cat - a solitary hunter who uses people as a means to get food.  But when he sits on my legs, paws on me, and falls asleep purring, you tell me that I'm just a lunchbox.
Although I'm still convinced that he checks to see if I'm breathing while I sleep to see if he can eat me yet.

Round 2 - a slight setback

So now we're in round 2 of chemo, and Leo's been happy and healthy.  Which is great!  He's responded well and his bloodwork looked good.  In fact, we were almost done with the second round chemo - the same as the first round, again.

Bit of a fright

So Saturday night was a bit scary.  After getting caught in a downpour earlier, we were relaxing at home and hanging out.  As midnight rolled around, it was time for the evening walk.  When we walked out, were very nearly attacked by a very large, very aggressive rottie from down the block.  It was dragging her owner behind her, charging down the block toward us.  The owner and her friend managed to get the dog back under control about 20 feet short of us, but still - it was terrifying.

Leo in the Car

Leo loves riding in the car.  He sits in front (regardless of how many people might be in the car), sits like a person, wears his seatbelt, and never complains about what's on the radio.
In short, he may be the perfect co-pilot.

A week without Chemo or drama

So Leo didn't go to chemo this week, which was probably a good thing.  The last of the cocktail, doxorubicin, was awful.  He obviously wasn't feeling well by Sunday night.  On Tuesday, he didn't even want to get out of bed, and wound up sick.  The good news is that we're well armed with medicine - anti-emetics, anti-diarrheals, anti-just-about-everything, so that's good, and he's kept his appetite (although apparently even THAT was flagging on Monday and Tuesday and into Wednesday, so that's bad).  But by Wednesday afternoon, he was back to being Leo and when I saw them on Friday they were both super happy.

Neverending

Leo did another chemo, but seriously, the tick thing is never ending.

Ticks!

So Leo's doing well enough, and well enough right after chemo that a little light hiking is ok - in fact, the vet recommended that we do things with him, since that's why we're doing this, after all.  So, I decided to take him hiking, with Luna, up in the Sterling Forest Preserve - close by, easy hikes, and I've not been there before.  The downside of this is that 1) he's just had chemo, and 2) I couldn't frontline him, since he's on chemo.  That was not a good thing.

Prednisone!

Just a side note - holy cow that dog can eat.  This weekend he ate constantly - bally, snacks, dinner, more snacks, another bally, another bally. Lisa says he's worse at her place.  Seriously, that dog is eating like crazy.  Between the prednisone and the metabolic changes that he's gone through (a result of there now being a lot fewer cancer cells), he's eating more and weighing almost 10 lbs less (down to 48.9 lbs, well below his happy weight).
Of course, he keeps this up and he'll be fat.  Granted, that the least of our worries.  Anyway, this weekend he's going to get some exercise.

Chemo #3

It looks like Tuesday/Wednesday is the bad day for Leo - he's fine with me, but he is definitely not the best with Lisa.  Aside from a bit of the poops, tho', he's been pretty good. Although it seems he reacts to diuretics like I do...

Remission

On Saturday Leo went in for Chemo #2.  While he had a bit of the Leo bounce back, he was still only at 75-80% - although he did take me for a long walk on Saturday morning.  We'd noticed his lymph nodes weren't swollen anymore, but was this remission? Could it happen this fast?
The folks at VERG were happy to see him (which is nice), and were even happier at his progress and his response to chemo.  In short - he responded as well as they can ever hope for, his side-effects were minor, considering his stage, and he's in clinical remission.

Week 1: Is this working?

So, Leo went in to chemo with a fairly high "tumor load", as the terminology goes.  His lymph nodes were big - many centimeters by many centimeters, and they showed up on ultrasound and x-ray.  He was a little bloated, and definitely not feeling well.  Chemo treatment 1 was supposed to work fast, reduce the tumor load, and reduce the swelling.  It did, and then some.

Chemo, Day 1

Leo asking to go outside instead of going to chemo.

There are several treatment options for canine lymphoma.  Palliative and supportive care, some older chemotherapy protocols, and the gold-standard Modified Wisconsin Protocol. Because of Leo's age, his general vitality, and our desire to have as much Leo-time as possible, we opted for the latter. 

Sheep herding

This is Leo's sheep herding instinct test from April, 2008.  He passed!

He wasn't nearly as manic as the other border collies (one just ran in circles around the sheep for about 10 minutes), but he just got it - go to the other side of the sheep, push them toward me.  And he loved to bark at them.  I believe the term they used on his certificate (yes, he has a certificate) says he was very "enthusiastic".

Leo has cancer.

Leo is my border collie.  He's 8 1/2.  Yesterday, I found out that Leo has lymphoma - a common, treatable, but ultimately uncurable cancer of the lymphatic system.  Treatment, in the form of chemotherapy, can result in average remission times of about 12 months.  He's otherwise healthy, and starting treatment soon.  Statistically, he should be around to be naughty, go on hikes, chase sheep, and be Leo for at least another year or so.
This will be the record of that year, and hopefully more.