The Tobster is doing OK, thanks.  He’s finding the side-effects from this particular chemotherapy more difficult.  He didn’t eat well for a full 2 weeks following his first Adriamycin + DTIC treatment.  And he STILL won’t touch anything we fed him the day before or the day of the chemotherapy.   So, finding things that he’ll happily eat has been difficult.

He got a nasty case of diarrhea about 3 days after his treatment, and as a result we put him on Flagyl for 10 days.  Then, when we did his CBC (in the 7-10 day window that you talk about on your blog) his neutrophil count was 1032… low enough to warrant a 5 day course of Baytril.

Thankfully, about 2 weeks post chemo he was pretty much back to himself – we found yet another food he’ll eat.  So, he’s coming to the end of a pretty good week.  Dog play, short walks, and actively collecting many pets and cuddles.  But, he’s scheduled for another course on Thursday.  After THAT course we’ll wait 3 weeks and do another series of chest films to see if this treatment is shrinking his lung lesion.  We’re very eager to see those pictures.

Overall, he seems to be a bit more sore (he has several know lesions in his legs/hips/shoulders) when he moves around.  And we tend to think he’s breathing a bit heavier.

So, in summary… it’s been a pretty mixed bag.  We hope this treatment will do him some good, but we’re afraid that we’re seeing a slow decline and we’re concerned about the side-effects of this therapy.  But he’s still happy to get up every morning, grabs a toy, tries to get us to chase him (we walk now, we don’t run) or play “tug” with him (we don’t tug very hard anymore).   As long as he seems to be enjoying life, we’re willing to do whatever we can…. And so far, he DOES seem to still enjoy being around.

Peter, Mont Vernon, NH