Fall Update

Sally and I are writing this together. Arrow is 13 months cancer free. She is doing great! Tonight we played outside in the dark. I found sticks, and she jumped for them and chased them into the woods. She is as frisky as ever. Well, except when she is inside...She takes herself up to bed like a 90-year old. 

This past week she stayed with her good friend Montana while Sally and I went to St. Paul, MN. Its good to know that she is so well loved, that our friends fight over who will take care of her. Her only malady since the summer has been a pesky skin condition which Sally insists is allergies, but I believe is an autoimmune disease - maybe a gluten allergy like her mom!

Now it is winter and we are back to dressing her in her festive camouflage fleece jacket to keep her radiation site from chapping and freezing. Side bar from Sally who puts vitamin E on the area daily, "Wow, this stuff really works! We should all use this." 

That's all for now....If you are reading this, thank you for your support and love. Arrow says, "Hey dude, live life in the moment!"

Oh, by the way, we are going to call an animal psychic...We'll let you know how that goes.

Nine Months Later

Well, it has been nine months since Arrow's tumor first appeared. And her check-up on Monday which consisted of a chest x-ray and body mapping - was excellent. She is in good shape. She has some weird skin thing on her face, but her cancer has not returned. The vet suggested - again - that we go see a dermatologist for her skin "thing," but we don't think we'll do that. She's been through enough.

Today we went for a walk and she was a crazy puppy. She was missing for about five minutes while I waited for her fending off mosquitos. After about six bites all over my legs, I finally her her jingling through the woods. When she finally reached us, we could see what she had been up to. Her face was COVERED in dirt. Her right eye was hardly noticeable under the caked on mud. Even half "chocolate" lab, she was as cute as ever!

Update

Well I've been a slacker with Arrow's web site. Since she has been out of the woods, I don't keep up with the site like I used to. I don't even know if anyone still checks it. But just to let you all know, she is doing well. She is happy, bouncy, and as fun as ever. We went for a walk on the beach on Saturday and she had a blast - hunting for rocks, digging in the sand, and smelling the dead fish she would find in the sand.

Next Monday, she goes back to Tufts for a chest X-ray. Its just a follow-up and they want to look for any mets from her cancer. We're pretty sure that she is going to come out of that appointment with flying colors. The cancer seems like a distant memory...That is until we see the bald spot on her side. Her fur still hasn't grown back yet in her radiations spot.

Sally and I are both happy to have her around this summer!

Arrow is Ready for Spring

Arrow had her 6 month cancer follow up visit at Tufts, and we are happy to say all is good. She has a skin lesion in her radiation site which is finally healing. She is on prednisone for a short time to try to kick the supposed autoimmune response causing the skin lesions out of her body. It is nice to see that she is her frisky old self. The pred makes her kind of like superdog. She hiked Mt. Skinner with her young friend Buttons today and ran around like a freak. She scaled down the side of the mountain and back up. And she can still walk tonight so that is good. She looks great, and is really happy to be rolling in the kind of green grass whenever she can. We go back for a chest xray in 2 months to make sure there are no mets in her lungs. She turned 11 on March 28, so she had her celebatory hot dog as usual. We are dreading having to slather sunscreen on her bald spot from the radiation from now on, since it gets in her fur and is slimy. Sal has to chase after her with lotion just like she does with me because I always have dry skin and never remember to moisturize.

She's so Complex

The good news...She's cancer free! Yeah!!! The interesting news is that she is such a medical enigma. Her test results reveal lymphoblahblahblah. Some big name that is another word for "autoimmune response." Even though it is an autoimmune response she likely doesn't have an autoimmune disorder. The thinking is that her body went into overdrive to fight a systemic infection. Crazy! They said, "this is unusual." The fungal panel hasn't come back yet and will take two weeks (she could have a systemic fungal infection).

The treatment protocol: She starts prednizone tonight 2x per day. One of two things will happen. 1) The spot will heal quickly meaning that the prednizone will suppress her immune system enough to keep the lump under control; or 2) her immune system will get suppressed by the prednizone and the infection will get worse.

Our little girl is contributing to animal science!

Cautiously Optimistic

We packed up ourselves and Arrow this morning for a ride that seemed to take forever. In fact, I could have stayed in the car all morning because I did not want to have the vet look at her hairless elbow and tell us that her tumor had returned. Too many decisions, to many memories came flooding each time I thought about hearing "her myxosarcoma is back and there is not much for us to do."

We arrived at Tufts about 15 minutes early (when are we ever early??). We stayed in the car and made some phone calls (had to call our heating company to find out why our bill was ridiculously expensive, had to call US Air and cancel the credit card which had promised companion tickets, but turned out to be pretty much a scam--but I digress). Then we ventured in to the office. Arrow tugged backwards a little with her leash. She knew where she was going and I don't think she felt too good about it either.

The oncology intern (or tech--didn't really know what her role was) came out to pick up Arrow. She clearly knew her and remembered her from her ordeal a couple of months ago. She gave her lots of kisses (the woman kissed Arrow -- Not the other way around). She looked at her elbow and said, "ew, what is that?" At least that is what it sounded like. Before she took Arrow back to the treatment area she told us how they would let her hang out with them during treatment and she would just stay with them, but as soon as they turned away from her, she would nudge them with her little nose saying, "please, pet me!"

After about an hour in the waiting room Dr. Lee, her radiation oncologist came out and said, "Arrow looks great. That thing on her arm is really unusual. We have no idea what it is." He went on to say that they aspirated the tumor and didn't see any cancer cells. He would be very surprised if it was a recurrence. And it isn't a Mast cell tumor as those are easy to detect under the microscope. She definitely has an infection so she is not free and clear of problems. His concern is that she was on 10 days of antibiotics and "Spot" is still active. We decided to let him biopsy Spot so that we could know if it was a tumor (under the infection-- again, he highly doubts that). We should know the results by Friday. Sally and I being the public health geeks that we are, are concerned that she has MRSA and will have to be on IV antibiotics.

She is our own little medical mystery, but we feel like we're going to be able to keep her around for awhile longer!

Opposum's are as dumb as you think they are

Little Boney is getting braver as she ages. In the almost 11 years that she has lived with me, she has never put another animal in her mouth (except for the little poodle who wouldn't leave her alone, but that's another story). She acts all courageous chasing squirrels and digging for chipmunks, but she never actually threatened to eat another being (unless of course, it was already processed and made into her Pro Plan kibble or canned food).

The other night, Sally and I began to have our conversation about who would take her out for her last pee of the night. Not that we don't both LOVE to escort her outside, but in the winter, we bicker for about five minutes convincing each other that it is the other's turn to take her outside. I rarely win that argument, but this one particular night, I happened to win and Sally ventured out into the cold. We have a rule that at night, when animals abound in our wooded yard, we put her on leash and guide her to the back of the yard for her to relieve herself before bed.

Sally ignored the rule. As she opened the door, Arrow raced outside crossing the driveway and ran in between the arborvitae, growling at some unseen creature. I was inside wondering what was taking them so long. Apparently, this is the order of events. She chased a living being into the neighbors yard. Sally called for her, and instead of Arrow, out came an opposum. It ran toward Sally until it saw her. And then, well it played possum. Realzing that his fight or flight response needed to kick in, the possum turned around and ran right into Arrow. But who knew, when faced with a possum staring her down, Arrow actually picked it up in her mouth! Our gentle puppy obeyed Sally as she yelled for her to drop him, and released her grip from his neck and the lucky possum lived to tell about his harrowing experience.

Who knew at 11, Arrow would develop a hunting instinct?

Facing a Possible Recurrence

Life moves at a rapid pace and we forget the problems that have faced us over time. This winter has come in like a lion - throwing things at us before we have a chance to catch up. About two weeks ago, we noticed another lump on Arrow. This time it is on her elbow right below the radiation site. It looks suspicious and we have had conversations with our vet about how to proceed.

I am incredibly grateful that I have never had to deal with cancer myself or with Sally. If you know me, however, you know that I have spent time thinking about how I would deal with or approach different scenarios. For example, when Sally had a swollen lymph node for a few weeks, I had taken us down a dark road and lost sleep over it for several nights until it went away. I've also known that if diagnosed and successfully treated, I would have major anxiety attacks for at least the first five years, just before my yearly exams to detect recurrence. And this is how it feels with Arrow.

Knowing that she had a likely "high" grade tumor, we knew that the chances the tumor would return were good. We thought we could hold it off for a year with radiation. I really do feel like we kicked cancer's ass and that she isn't going to die from this cancer. But here we are with an ambiguous growth, that forces us to think about how we will handle a progressive cancer with our little doggie.

The choices aren't great. The "Odd looking spot of suspicious origin" (Sally's description, neither of us want to call it a tumor--let's call it Spot) is kind of small and so hard to aspirate for a biopsy. The vet could do surgery and remove Spot, but because it is right below the radiation site, the wound might have trouble healing. If it is a myxosarcoma, then part of her last few months will be recovering from a surgery that didn't really buy us time. Quality v. quantity. That's the decision. We could wait and see, but as the last tumor showed us, if it is more than Spot, this thing grows fast. So if we wait, then it will be pretty large and surgery might not be an option. Oh, the oncologist's words were something like, "If it is a recurrence, the surgical option is amputation." That doesn't sit well with either Sally or I (I don't think Arrow liked it either). We don't feel like leaving her with three legs, to extend her life for a few months is a great option.

As Sally said, the only thing we know that we HAVE to do is love her like its our job. Give her bones, and hot dogs. Give her belly rubs, nice walks, and time with her doggie friends. Sally and I will be processing this one a lot over the next couple of days to try and make a decision that is best for her (first) and us (second).

These pictures were taken on Christmas day. She doesn't look like a dog with cancer!