The sidekick

www.alecialaurenphotography.com

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh," he whispered.

"Yes, Piglet?"

"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."

~ A.A. Milne

Three years ago today, Matilda joined the family (thank you, Atlanta Humane Society!).  She’s a pointer-boxer mix, now 3 ½ years old, 65 pounds of bones and muscles, fast as lightning… and completely skittish and submissive. 

She and Asa make a perfect pair.  He’s overly confident and opinionated, and she loves following his lead.  In return, she keeps him alert and energetic by chasing him, trying to wrestle (and always letting him win), and letting him know when those pesky squirrels have invaded the yard and need an immediate talking-to.  The antidote to old age in my house has been a young dog to shake things up.

There’s a little English girl who often comes on the Ellen Show to sing and rap – Sophia Grace.  And each time, she brings her “hype girl” – her younger cousin Rosie who gives her support and confidence.  My dogs have that kind of relationship – Matilda is Asa’s hype girl!  He is more comfortable at all these vet appointments when she comes along. (see Sophia Grace and Rosie in action on Ellen)


And just as Robin would be nothing without Batman, Matilda was absolutely lost when Asa disappeared for surgery and recovery.  She whined constantly, spun in circles, wandered the house and sniffed for him, laid down in his favorite spots, and whined more.  I had to take her on multiple runs to distract her and use up her energy each day he was gone.

Considering he has 10 years on her and she’s so attached to him, she might have an even harder time than me when he leaves us for doggie heaven.  But we’ll worry about that when the time comes.  In the meantime, Batman and Robin keep things exciting (and messy) around here.

Tell me about your experience:

1. Do you have more than one dog in the house?  How do they get along?
2. Have you had to help a pet adjust to the loss of another beloved pet?

Hazmat gloves & poop bags

A dog owns nothing, yet is seldom dissatisfied. ~ Irish Proverb

My biggest fear about subjecting my dog to chemo treatment was the unknown side effects.  I heard that chemo doesn’t affect dogs the same way it affects humans, and I also heard that they don’t push dogs as far with chemo as they push humans.  Both proved to be true for us, and Superdawg Asa tolerated it quite well… with a few quirks:

It’s dangerous

As I previously mentioned, Asa has been taking maintenance chemo at home everyday since he finished his IV treatment in the fall of 2010.  It’s called cyclophosphamide (a type of metronomic chemotherapy), and I should have noticed that the vet oncologist’s slang term for it is “cyclotoxin.”  Yes, I am administering a hazardous substance at home on a daily basis.  A compounding pharmacy in North Carolina ships a supply of pills to my house each month, and they come with a month’s supply of those blue hazmat gloves.  The bottle and the accompanying literature warn me not to touch the pill without the gloves on, and they instruct me to dispose of the gloves immediately in a sealed plastic bag.

It stinks

Holy overwhelming, smelly dog poop!  Let’s be honest – it doesn’t smell like roses to begin with.  All dogs have stinky waste and toots, and it’s just part of their “charm.”  Well, throw a bunch of hazardous chemicals into your dog’s body, and it takes on an entirely new level of dizzying grossness.  I can’t begin to describe the smell, and I’m sure you don’t need a detailed description.  It’s just gross.

Leave no man behind

Confession:  One reason I bought a house as a single girl (instead of a cute condo or townhouse in the cool part of the city) was to get a big backyard where my dogs could run and play and poop freely.  No more leash walks just for doing “bizness,” no more picking up after them every single time, not for this girl!!

Life’s little way of putting you in your place:  Since chemo makes Superdawg’s poop toxic, guess who’s back to scooping and bagging?  In her own backyard no less!  My neighbors now think I’m weird, but they never ask.

Even more fun:  Stinky, toxic poop must be double-bagged and safely disposed of.

Under a microscope

All of the above add up to laughs and inconvenience.  The bigger challenge for me has been the emotional toll of the monthly oncology checkups.  When your dog is poked and prodded and sampled and examined so often, they find things.  Lots of things.  Even more so because Superdawg is well past the average life expectancy for a dog his size.

For example, he was diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia, and the wear and tear on his kidneys has been exacerbated by the NSAID he takes to complement the chemo.  On a good note, though, the heart problem is controlled by a small pill twice a day, and his kidney issues (which could have been helped by the kidney diet dog food they prescribed but he wouldn’t eat) have been mitigated by fish oil pills.  Yep, the same ones you take for your brain and heart and whatever other reasons.

I get way more information than I bargained for at these monthly checkups.  I honestly can’t decide if it’s good to know every little thing that goes wrong.  I focus on the issues that cause him discomfort or pain or could be fixed by a non-invasive intervention.  I’m not willing to subject him to another surgery or uncomfortable experience.

Tell me about your experience:

1. How have you found humor or encouragement when dealing with your dog’s cancer?
2. What side effects has your dog experienced?  How did you handle them?
3. What are the monthly recheck appointments like for your dog?  For you?

Extra innings

Some of our greatest historical and artistic treasures we place in museums; others, we take for walks. ~ Roger Caras


I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a little interweb time to what it’s like providing hospice care for my loyal buddy.  IT’S AWESOME!  I’m not lying.  On top of a lifetime of cool adventures and memories together, these are the best days we’ve had because… drumroll… he has no idea anything’s wrong, and I’ve learned to smell the roses with him.  If you almost lose your dog suddenly and violently, then every additional day is a remarkable gift.  And if your dog has an incurable cancer, the only thing that matters is quality of life for the time he has left. 

There’s the medical side of quality of life, and then there’s the day-to-day quality of life.  Longer, slower walks letting him sniff as much as he wants.  An extra treat… or 3 (hey, when you have to keep a dog’s weight up, why not let them indulge.  I know I’d have extra dessert everyday if I needed to regain weight).  More quality time scratching his favorite spots – Asa’s ahhhhh spots are behind his ears, around his collar, and under his neck. 

Just paying more careful attention to him as we walk and play outside and hang out inside has reopened my eyes to the miracle that is my loyal boy.  He loves lying in the sunshine and will find even the tiniest ray on a cloudy day.  He loves slurping and chewing the big fat blades of grass but passes on the skinny blades.  He’s ticklish.  He sits closer to me when I’m laughing at sitcoms, and he goes to the far side of the room when I’m yelling at a game (Sic ‘em Baylor Bears!).  He tilts his head like he’s listening when I read out loud.  He guards my bedroom door when I go to take a shower, and he supervises the kitchen, well, always.  Nowadays when I leave and return home (even if I’m only gone 5 minutes), I’m just as excited to see him as he is to see me – and I must confess, I now give back some of that obnoxious energy at the door.

I’m now admiring him and his idiosyncrasies the same way I did when he was my mysterious new roommate.  It’s not that I stopped paying attention to him for all the years in between (we’ve had some amazing adventures together), but he became an expected fixture in my life, and I probably started overlooking those cool quirks and funny traits that make him MY DOG, my Asa. 

He and his cancer have taught me a valuable, refreshing approach to everyday life, and it has also strengthened my relationships with my other dog (sweet Matilda) and my family and friends too.  Praise God for extra innings…  And for daily opportunities to make the most of the 1^st 9 too.

Tell me about your experience:

1. What makes your pet unique? (or your child or partner or someone else at the core of your home)
2. What’s your favorite memory with your pet?
3. What small everyday events do you get a kick out of?

Hemangi... huh??

One reason a dog can be such a comfort when you're feeling blue is that he doesn't try to find out why. ~ Unknown

Hemangiosarcoma is a huge, ugly-sounding, complicated word. So is its parent - cancer. It’s mean, and it’s selfish, and it takes no prisoners. I didn’t know my dog was sick and hurting… until I found him collapsed on my kitchen floor in a pool of his own urine. Called my father, and he rushed over to help me take him to the vet to put him to sleep (so we thought). Asa weighed 80 pounds, so I needed help just to get him into my car.

My loyal buddy groaned this excrutiating noise and lost control of his functions all over my shins and feet as we lifted him and carried him to the car. Found out later his spleen had ruptured, and he was bleeding internally and in a ton of pain. Even though I thought I would have to put him to sleep that day, I couldn't drive to the vet fast enough. I just wanted to ease his pain, make him feel better as fast as possible.

Fast forward a couple of hours, and we were leaving the vet (with my dog still in the game) and heading to the University of Georgia's vet school, about 45 minutes away in Athens, GA. His vet (Dr. N.C.) diagnosed his ruptured splenic tumor via ultrasound and determined that he had a significant amount of internal bleeding. She told us he might make it if we got him to surgery fast enough.

Upon arriving at the vet school, everything happened in a blur: he was taken into the back, but my dad and I had to wait in the lobby... saw several vet residents and vet students... Emergency specialist, Dr. S.O., said he was bleeding out quickly... connected him to IV fluids... my mother arrived too... got to see him... my gorgeous, fiesty lab mix was a meek, exhausted blob of fur lying on a rolling cart with tubes and IVs everywhere... I sat down on the floor next to him, and he flopped his head on my hands when I offered them... Vet Surgeon came in... 2 options - surgery which he had a 50/50 chance of surviving because of the blood loss... or put him to sleep. Since he would be under anesthesia and not in pain, I was willing to give surgery a shot... blah... Go home, and I'll call you by 2am... blah... but first, do you want to sign a DNR?... oh and we need a credit card for a HUGE deposit... blah... blood transfusions... blah... potential things that could go wrong......................................................................

He lost approximately half of his blood from the internal bleeding and the surgery, but he survived (thank you, doggie blood donors!). Huge ruptured tumor on his spleen but no other tumors, nodules, or spots in or around his stomach, liver, lungs, and all those other necessary organs. I thought we'd already been through a lot, but that was only the 1st hurdle... He stayed in doggie ICU for 2 days, and I came to visit him each day.

To the vet tech he bit the day after surgery, SORRY!!! Surgeon actually apologized to me instead - said Asa gave them a warning growl when they checked his EKG pad things, and they knew better than to corner a wounded dog, but they kept messing with him... His chart now has the scarlet letter stamp of shame - WILL BITE.

Fast forward a few days, and Surgeon called me with the biopsy results. The worst possible results. It was hemangiosarcoma. A word I couldn't say correctly until I practiced it. Chance of survival past 6 months is less than 5%, and that 5% is almost exclusively comprised of dogs they catch before their spleens rupture. He was probably going to be on the lower end of the 2-6 month scale because all that contaminated blood had been pooling in his abdomen, microscopically metastasizing its hatred. This cancer is aggressive, and it obediently follows the average prognosis, almost to the day.

I took the rest of the day off and spent the afternoon lying on the floor next to him and crying. He licked my tears off my cheeks. He's thoughtful like that.

Tell me about your experience:

1.    How did you realize your dog was sick?

2.    What decisions did you have to make?

3.    What helpful resources did you find and use (people, websites,
etc)?

Superdawg!

There is only one smartest dog in the world, and every boy has it. ~ Unknown

My dog is a superdawg.  It’s a complete miracle that he’s still alive. His name is Asa [A (as in “play”) – suh], but explaining his name and why I chose it will require its own separate post.  He has been the linebacker type since the day I met him at the Athens, GA pound.  Clay Matthews would be proud of his blonde hair, sneak attack from the outside, charming way with the ladies, and all.  He's now 13 ½ and still a force to be reckoned with.  Never had Cesar Milan-approved manners (I tried and failed), but a boisterous, social guy who used to welcome everyone at the door with 2 paws off the floor (don’t tell Cesar…). 

18 months ago, my Asa collapsed, and I thought we’d have to say goodbye.  After emergency surgery and 3 of the worst days of my life so far, he was diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma.  All kinds of cancer are bad.  Hemangiosarcoma is an imminent death sentence for a pooch.  For some miracle reason, Asa is the superdog superdawg (spelling = nod to his UGA vet pals) who has busted the curve.  February 10^th was his 18-month Asa-versary since his surgery, and YES, we had a party!

Superfriends made him a Superdawg cape
(more on Superfriends later)

I know slightly more than Jack crap from a medical perspective about his kind of cancer, why treatments aren't effective, and how they try to delay the inevitable… but I know LOTS about what it feels like as his mama to get such an abrupt diagnosis, how difficult the decisions are, how expensive the treatment options are, and how stressful it still is every month when we go back to UGA vet school for his oncology recheck.

I've made accidental new friends around the country whose dogs have also been diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma. Their comments and questions range from "what's your miracle cure?" to "don't you know that dogs can't survive without a spleen???" and everything in between. To the 1st extreme, I'm sad to say I don't know the miracle cure.  I’d hand it out like candy if I knew it!  We've been extremely blessed, and his vet oncologist and general practice vet both say he's the most successful case they've seen.  So I don't have magic answers, but I'm happy to share our experience and let you know what the ride has been like.  To the other extreme who think the vets have ripped me off because "dogs can't survive without spleens," all I know is that my boy has been doing just fine without his for 18 months.  I wouldn't be surprised if it's a life-ending surgery for some sweet pups, and my sympathies to those owners.  In Asa's case, it was do the emergency splenectomy to save his life… or put him to sleep right then and there, so I didn’t worry until later about the pros and cons of having a spleen.  More about that drama later though...

I'm writing this blog to share my experience.  Having a dog with cancer might sound like a silly problem until it’s YOUR dog.  I have been blessed with supportive families and friends and some amazing, caring vets, but it has been tough to find dog people who have been there and could openly talk about the experience and let me know what to expect.  Hopefully Asa and I can pay it forward by telling our experience.