Category Archives: Metastasis

July update

July 23, 2013Ampuversary, Hairless Pup, Little sisters, Metastasis, Supplementsdoggiemomma9

Here is a July update. Some stuff fun, some stuff not so fun. Fun stuff first!

So, we got to go up to the lake house and go swimming! Then, I had my 25th Month Ampuversary. Hooray! That was on July 14. Then the Hairless Pup had her BIG ONE. Then the day after that, Little Miss Perfect had her 7th birthday. Here are some pictures!

Swimming!!!

I sure did have a bigger butt when I had 4 legs. Lola just likes to dig in the sand. She is not a strong swimmer.

Lola….She’s always getting in my way.

Here’s the official family photo for the Hairless Pup’s one year birthday:

Notice how WE have hats on and The HP does NOT. She cried and cried when they tried to put the hat on her. Did we cry??? Nooooo, we were good dogs. But The HP did NOT get any cheese after either. So HUH!

They had a big shin-dig at home for The HP, and Lola & I were ‘quarantined to the comforts of upstairs.’ Or at least that was the spin they put on it for us. I suspect the plates of chicken wings and chocolate cake downstairs might have been the cause for keeping us upstairs. I do have a history with chocolate cake, oh so many years ago. I can still taste the sticky gooey frosting in my jowls. (Right before they made me puke it all up.)

And….Little Miss Perfect turned 7. Hmmmph. I tried to photo bomb her, but it doesn’t look like I was too successful.

Momma says Lola went and had a “spa day” for her birthday. She can’t fool me, I know what happened to her because Lola came back smelling all flowery and showing me her Brazilian. Momma says I got out of going, because I can’t stand on a grooming table with 3 legs and they give me a bath here at home every 3 weeks because of my skin allergies anyway. I guess there are some perks…and doG knows, I don’t need a Brazilian.

OK , so here is the not so fun stuff: I had my very last chemo treatment (I suppose that’s good stuff, depending on how you look at it.) I have developed a “cough” and I have developed a limp in my front right leg. I am not feeling like a spring chicken at the moment. Momma and Dada have upped their fuss factor over me. I can’t even take a pee in peace. Of course, I guess I never did, now that I think about it.

Also we have a had a few emails inquiring about some of my treatments. Here is a link to the mushroom stuff I’m on:

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/compound-derived-mushroom-lengthens-survival-time-dogs-cancer-penn-vet-study-finds

So that is it for now. Until next time…keep on keepin’ on.

Oscar is really a slob

July 4, 2013Metastasisdoggiemomma9

So we had some scans done on June 27th, and Oscar, the slob, is really getting big. Rough estimate on size: went from 2cm to 3.6 cm.

Felix is about the same size, and the Manitou doesn’t seem to have any big growth either.

So, it was not a good news day. But we move on from here.

Hop silently and carry a big bone.

Hoppy New Year 2013

January 13, 2013CCNU, Chemo, Hairless Pup, Hemangiosarcoma, Little sisters, Loungin', Metastasis, Metronomics, Soccer ballsdoggiemomma9

Hi everyone, it is me Butchey Hudson. I hope you all had a Hoppy New Year! I thought New Year’s was fine, but Momma says we got some bad news on New Years Eve at our doc appointment. It would seem my latest X-Rays show that although Felix is stable, Oscar is still growing. Quite a bit. And now I have lumps under my one of my ears, too. The Doc aspirated them and they came back positive for hemangiosarcoma. Phooey.

So now I am on a new drug, CCNU, in hopes that this will slow things down on the cancer front. Momma and Dada decided to stop the Cytoxan and Doxycycline because it didn’t seem to be doing enough. We check back with the doc 3 weeks after that New Years Eve appt. My CBC 1 week post CCNU came back OK. So I will probably have another dose of CCNU at my next appointment. It is in pill form, so no IV which Momma likes. We will do X-Rays again 6 weeks after last ones to see what the Odd Couple are doing, and we will monitor the size of my ear lump.

Momma and Dada are very sad, but hopeful that the CCNU will help me. Meanwhile, I just do what I do best: LOUNGE!

The trick is to become one with the pillows

For any of you wondering, the ~~gray~~ red soccer ball has been my favorite lately. It has the most flavor stored up in it.

I still like to be near the Hairless Pup a lot. She’s alright. Even though despite all the promises made to me, she has only just started to drop some food my way.

Lola just walked into the picture to get her self in the photgraph

Did I mention Momma had gotten a new camera? She likes this black and white stuff.

Me smelling the air. I LOVE sniffing the air. Tells you a lot about what the neighbors are eating.

The Hairless Pup complained to me about the Tutu. Just wait until they put her in the Cone of Shame!

Here is our official Christmas Picture for 2012. We only stay for CHEESE.

Here are me and Lola opening up our presents on Christmas morning.

Santa Paws brought me an Indoor Chuck-It. Yeah…Like that WON’T break anything in the house! And that floppy green dog behind me is Roofus. He get’s a whipping when he’s been bad, but I still like to hang out on the couch with him.

So that is it for now. Or so I think. Momma has seemed a bit giddy the past couple of days. She says she has a secret that I will like a lot. But she says ‘contractually’ she can’t say anymore….yet. What the woof is ‘contractually’? So I guess – Stay Tuned!

Mets Update

November 21, 2012Hairless Pup, Little sisters, Metastasis, Metronomics, Soccer ballsdoggiemomma9

Hi everyone, Butchey Hudson here.

Momma says we ought to post an update on how my last NEVOG appointment went. I feel fine! I don’t know what all this fuss is about!

Anyway, Momma says we need to name these 2 nodules that are in my lungs. Momma was thinking an evil duo, but at the risk of antagonizing them, we’re just going to call them Felix and Oscar. You know, like the Odd Couple?

So it appears that Felix hasn’t changed much in the past 6 weeks or so. Still about 8-10 mm. But Oscar is putting on some weight. He was 6mm last time and is now 1.2 cm. Momma says we have to think and stay pawsitive!!

So we are adding doxycycline back into my metronomic protocol. Our doc also mentioned a drug called Leukeran, but we are hesitant to change drugs after what happened with Palladia. But if anyone has any experience with it, we’d love to hear about it! But for right now it is Cytoxan/Deramaxx/Doxycycline. Plus the I’m Yunity mushroom.

Momma says that this metronomic protocol seemed to work for us for a while before. It is just that the Piroxicam took its toll on my tummy the last time. We are hoping the doxy doesn’t bother my tummy. So we are taking it on a full tummy full of food.

Well Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Don’t forget to be thankful that you are pulling dog hairs out of your gravy!

PS – Dada and Momma also found a lump on my side, but the doc thinks it is just a fatty lipoma. Definitely a different feel than the lump on the back of my neck.

Here’s a few pics, because Momma got a new camera. She’s always shoving it in somebody’s face!

Slobbery, Squishy Soccer Ball. How I love you.

And because people just BEGGED for them, here are the humiliating pictures from Halloween:

Lola as the Jedi Knight, and me as Chewbacca (raaaaar!)

The Hairless Pup (aka Tessa) as Princess Leia

Belated Hoppy Halloween!

November 6, 2012CDSP, Little sisters, Loungin', Metastasis, Rally-O, Soccer ballsdoggiemomma9

Hey everyone, it is me again, Butchey Hudson.

Just a quick check in to let everyone know we had a Hoppy Halloween. Hope you all did, too. No dogs got into any candy here at our household. Chocolate is bad, bad for us dogs. Just ask my Momma and Dada. A long long long long long time ago, they FREAKED when I got into a chocolate cake on the counter. Momma didn’t have a happy birthday that year. The frosting was delicious though. It got stuck all up in my gums and I thought I’d be snacking on that for a while, but then they made me throw up. That was not fun. Anyway…no issues like that this year.

If anyone was wondering…yes – they did make me and Lola dress up. How humiliating. I won’t post the pictures, I am so ashamed. But here is a nice one of me and the pesky little sister.

So things have been going well. I’ve been doing really great and feeling good. I did some Rally-O and CDSP Obedience the past couple of weeks. But I’ve been running out of the ring again because I am just sooooo goofy. Momma still loves me though. I still had fun. I earned my first qualifying score in the Rally Veterans class (which I can now enter because I’m 8 years young now!) Momma says “Old Dogs Rock!”

So, you know those Boppy things they make for babies? They are pretty comfy. They aren’t just for babies anymore, they are for Butcheys, too.

So in a couple of weeks I get another set of X-Rays on my lung mets and see what they are doing. Hopefully nothin’. But we will let you know.

Until then…keep on keepin’ on hoppin’!!

The M Word

September 14, 2012Hemangiosarcoma, Metastasis, Metronomics, Momma says, Palladiadoggiemomma9

Butchey Hudson’s Momma here. As many of us know here on Tripawds.com, one of the words we hate to encounter after a cancer diagnosis is Metastasis. It is a nasty word, and unfortunately we have it.

One of Butchey’s chest x-rays back in May showed a spot that would probably be on the lung. About 6 weeks later, the spot had doubled in size. That growth spurt happened while we had him on Palladia, so unfortunately the drug didn’t slow the growth of the nodule.

August was not a terrific month for Butchey, but so far September has been much better. It seems the Palladia didn’t agree to well with Butchey. We posted before about his bowel issues with it. The pigment also lightened on his nose and on his paw pads. Whether a coincidence or not, his paw pads also got really soft and he began to lose traction on his feet. Not a good thing for any dog, but especially not good for a Tripawd. At first it was issues with the doing stairs. Then it was issues on the floor, even though most of the floor is covered with carpet or throw rugs. Then he was even slipping on carpet. He also seemed to have some weakening in his remaining back leg, which would flop out from under him quite a bit for about a week in August. He barely played with Lola. Then he stopped eating.

So away the Palladia went. Bye-bye. After giving him some time off from meds to clear out his system, we are going back to a modified version of his previous metronomic protocol. We started with Deramaxx (replaces the Piroxicam as the NSAID) and we are also back on Cytoxan. Holding off on the Doxycycline for now. He had vomitting issues several months back, which led us off the old metronomic protocol. We are hoping it was mainly the Piroxicam that caused that issue, and also hoping that where Deramaxx is supposed to be easier on the stomach, we won’t have any vomitting issues. He wasn’t on the Doxy for quite a while, so we know that wasn’t causing the last bout of vomiting on that protocol. But we know it can cause stomach upset, so we are holding off on Doxy for now.

So this modified metronomic protocol was one of the choices available to us. We also had a couple of chemotherapy options. But we felt that after 5 rounds of Adriamycin last year, we had given him all we really wanted to on that front. Keeping quality of life a top priority, and we were already quite concerned after the setbacks in August, more chemo just didn’t seem right to us. We had a good 6 months on the old metronomic protocol before, and it kept the cancer at bay for that time period. It did seem like the lump on his neck and the nodule on his lung happened while we were off the protocol and trying to get the other issues worked out. We are hoping the Cytoxan can slow this nodule on his lungs, or even better – stop it from growing. We rescan in another few weeks and will see what the size is then. We are keeping our paws crossed.

So, after the Palladia dry out, things did return to normal. Thankfully! Gradually, the strength returned in his back leg. We used Pawz Boots in the interim to help with the slipping issue, but eventually the pigment started returning to normal and we now have traction again. With those improvements, his confidence has returned. He started doing some stairs again. Then one morning last week he went down the long flight of stairs off of our back deck, just like that. All by himself, no harness, no boots. I can’t really explain the sense of relief we felt. After that he initiated a tug game with his leash after a #2 in the front yard. So we knew he was feeling much better.

We did manage to get some swimming in during August and September.

And some cuddle time with Tessa…

Trying to enjoy each day and not spend it in tears thinking about what is ahead of us. Hemangiosarcoma, you suck.