Not the post I was hoping to write

It’s been just shy of 3 months since my last blog. I have been meaning to update everyone on how Sophie’s been doing but between the holidays, vet visits, and just doing other things there never seemed to be time – or I didn’t make it.

During that time Sophie was doing pretty well. She had a pretty severe reaction to the first chemo – her WBC was waaay too low – but they reduced the dose and she did well afterwards. She was not able to go on as long of walks and her endurance didn’t seem to be getting better but neither was it getting worse. She wanted to play all the time and was pretty much her old self. We got through all three doses of carboplatin and even started COQ-10 in preparation for beginning doxorubicin. No obvious side affects and she seemed to be doing well.

And then we went in for her fourth chemo, and her first doxorubicin.

Every time my vet hospital starts a new cancer treatement they do a full CBC and chest x-rays. Sophie’s CBC came back normal, but her chest x-rays came back not so normal. They found two sizeable nodules and several smaller ones. Her estimated median survival time dropped from next November to April. Ouch.

This is what I had been dreading. It seems to me that the carbo didn’t really work at all, an outcome I was afraid of after they had to reduce her dose. So what were my options?

Do nothing – absolutely not. I’m not ready to give up on something working, even if the traditional route didn’t.

Continue with the doxo and hope it worked – since the carbo didn’t work, it didn’t seem to be the ideal path to me.

Try metronomic chemo (low dose, given frequently, slows the growth of blood vessels that feed tumors) – because it’s the new hotness and has promising results (and because traditional chemo wasn’t working), it’s the way I decided to go. Her pills are in the mail – they’re coming from Arizona, and the treatment is much less expensive than traditional chemo.

Other options included pamidronate (a bone sparing med) and Palladia (prevents the formation of new blood vessels in tumors, theoretically starving them). We’re trying them too.

I am struggling with this news – it’s hard for me not to think about what my life will be like without her. I have lived alone with Sophie for the better part of 8 years and she’s what my life centers around. I have picked apartments with her needs in mind. I plan my schedule around being home to let her out – in fact, I have virtually no social life during the week because of it. I’m not complaining, it just is. I don’t mind. When I bought her out of that rubbermaid bin 9 years ago I knew that she was my responsibility and have acted accordingly. I don’t always get home from work when I want to and I sometimes think she doesn’t get enough attention or exercise. But she’s the center of my life. She gets me out walking (it used to be running) and hiking. She makes me interact with others. She calms me down, which is something I often need. She is my rock and my best friend.

If she gets sick or her quality of life in any other way declines, then I think I’ll just have to face it. She’ll go to doggy heaven and be happy and wait patiently for me to arrive so we can play. But what am I going to do without her?