Patches Journey

I’m glad I didn’t post earlier today because I wouldn’t have had the complete picture to share.  The picture of Patches begging for more pork chops from dinner after eating her plate before her brother.  Last night at 2am I wouldn’t have thought that would be the case.  She threw up a little.  I thought for sure it was the chemo but when I asked if anyone fed her after I gave her tuna and chicken jerky…..my son gave her a plate of little steak chunks because “she looked really really hungry”.  So I’m thinking that it may have been a combination of chemo and too much food.

Tonight as I type she’s alert and looking at me with an accusatory look because her brother is presently hogging my lap.  Which I wouldn’t mind if he would only stop tooting.  We all have one.  He’s killing me.

Bottom line…..Patches is doing so well.  Ate like a champ (would still be eating if I’d get up and do her bidding), barked at her “buddy”, asking for belly rubs and snoring on her comfy tempurpedic doggy bed.

I’m so relieved and happy.  Let’s hope tomorrow is even better.  Or at least AS good.  I’d take that any day.

Thanks for reading!  Have an awesome night.  more tomorrow.

xo

Debbie and Patches

Ok, so we have our first chemo treatment under our belts today Tuesday September 15, 2015.  I can’t lie and say I wasn’t nervous.  In fact I began feeling guilty when she saw me open the car door at home and she trotted over to go for a bye bye ride, tail wagging, smiling.

This visit started out better than the last one because of the simple fact that she peed OUTSIDE instead of INSIDE.  That being said she still tried to terrorize a miniature sheltie and a mastiff whose head was about as big as her…….well, as HER.  The mastiff looked at her and didn’t flinch or change expression.  I thought “yeah me too buddy….the nerve”.  His owner looked at Patches did a double take, looked at me and we had a laugh.  Thank God, I needed it.  Aside from trying to leave pretty much from the time we got there and the bark offs with the other two she was great.

The oncology nurse who attended surgery and cared for her afterward came out to get her for her treatment and gave Patches a hug and a nice greeting.  I looked at her, went to say hello….and started crying.  Hm.  Not the impression I was going for.  She was SO nice.  I guess I was scared.  More than I thought.  So they changed it up for me a little so that I could talk to the vet (again) first before chemo.  I talked to the vet and let her know I was scared in general, scared of side effects, scared of something called extravasation and did I mention scared.  This vet is the bomb diggity guys.  Jennifer Baez at Cares in Langhorne PA.  She’s just…..amazing.  We talked and while we discussed I asked if she’d heard about metronomic therapy.  She replied “well yes, that’s what we do after the carboplatin”.  I was sold.  She is also a big Patches fan.   Patches is a Dr. B fan too but I had to walk back to the treatment area with Patches because when Dr. Baez tried to take her without me, Patches sat her little three-legged ass down and wasn’t about to budge.  And I don’t know a soul in their right mind who would try to drag a three wheeler with such a cute little face so like the guilty trooper that I am……I walked her back to the room.  And snuck out when she turned around.  And then I waited while they did blood work (they do that frequently to make sure her counts are able to withstand platinum based therapy) and then the chemo IV.  All said it was maybe 45 minutes.  While I waited I read a magazine, stole a box of tissues (proudly I didn’t kick the entire box) and played on my phone.

Then a door opened and I heard the now familiar “click click…..thump” of my little tripawd and when I turned to see her she was RUNNING toward me smiling with her tail wagging.  I was mighty happy to see her too.  They gave her nausea meds before she even left, gave me some for home, talked me through the visit and then I checked out.  I was pleasantly surprised that the cost was nowhere near what I expected and was more than willing to pay.  It was in the zip code of $300 and change. I live in NJ.  You can hardly get Double bubble for $300 and change (slight exaggeration) so I was downright giddy.

And now we wait.  And pray.  Patches came home and did what she does best- barked at the six year old little boy across the street, barked at the neighbor in his driveway, ate a can of tuna and two pieces of chicken jerky, burped and went to sleep.

As this is a first time treatment for us, I will give daily updates.  Prayers, kind words, support and happy emojis are ALL welcome.  Thank you for reading.  Have a wonderful day/night.

xoxo

Debbie

Patches Smells the flowers

Hello, my name is Debbie and my little tripawd is named Patches.  She has a lot of other names but Patches is the official.  Our journey began on Friday August 21st.  I could even tell you the time because the moment I heard that my dog might have osteosarcoma time stood still. 

Patches (aka Patches Minerva Mimi Jane Lorraine) is a Canaan dog that we rescued from the Trenton Animal Shelter in 2007.  She joined her brother Rooster who we adopted in 2006.  She came from a hoarding house.  The well-meaning but ill equipped dog lover had 40 dogs, some cats and a giant mess.  They found Patches with five puppies, all of them covered in feces.  She had broken teeth from fighting for food and she had worms.  They rescued all of the dogs in the house and found that they loved people but were understandably aggressive toward other dogs.  Constantly having to fight for food would do that to a dog.  I found patches on petfinder.com as I was looking for a companion for our Golden/Chow love bug Rooster.  I met her at Petsmart but was told that she was already adopted.  Two weeks after my visit where I expressed interest I received a phone call that Patches was brought back to the shelter and now available for adoption. 

Before we adopted Patches we were not aware of her other dog aggression.  We only knew she was placed in three homes previously but was brought back for reasons that weren’t completely clear.  Ignorance on our part worked in her favor.  We vowed to bring her into our home and keep her no matter what.  “No matter what” turned into fierce food aggression that saw her brother hiding in a corner for two days, constant shedding and us wondering how we were going to survive this aggressiveness and the tumbleweeds.  Her brother is as submissive as she is dominant so thankfully there were no physical altercations though there were some scary growling matches.  We welcomed the tumble weeds and took it all in stride.

Within 6 months, Patches had nipped one other dog and developed a special “frenemy” relationship with the standard poodle down the street.  This was the dog she loved……..or should I say would have loved to taste.  After 6 months us Patches got past a door one day, ran outside and was tearing toward her frenemy as though she were going to literally devour her for being in our yard.  I did a football dive to catch her.  I caught her.  And broke all four fingers on my left hand in the process.  Four external fixation pins and two prescriptions for painkillers later I questioned the wisdom of our decision to keep her.  We soldiered on because we realized she didn’t open that door and let herself out.  We had a moment of sloppiness that we NEVER had again. 

Not long after we noticed a change in Patches.  She began to “soften”.  Mellow if you will.  She now always had a “smile” on her face and was developing a gentleness that came from a sense of security.  Her tail wagged continuously, she no longer looked to devour her brother and she even learned to beg and play.  We realized that by being patient, loving her unconditionally, making food plentiful and not listening to naysayers who told us to give her back we helped her become the dog she was meant to be.  Healthy, joyful, spirited and most of all loving towards humans AND other dogs, especially her brother.  Still with constant shedding 🙂

Fast forward to June of this year.  We have no idea how old Patches is and had no idea in June either but we noticed a slight limp in her front left paw and she began tripping here and there.  We thought old age was setting in and perhaps, like her brother, she had a bout with a strained tendon.  perhaps her eyesight was going a little because her hearing was not as keen as it once was.  We kept an eye on her and she progressively got worse.  To the point where she no longer put weight on her paw.  I couldn’t let the problem linger and I made an emergency appointment with our vet on August 21st because that week she went from a moderate limp to all out non-weight bearing.  We thought she maybe fractured a paw or tibia.  The vet sedated my girl and they performed xrays to see if they could identify the issue.  What they came back with shocked me.  It seemed there was a tumor in her humerus (top of her foreleg and into her shoulder) that was suspicious for osteosarcoma.  Shock.  Denial.  And a sleeping puppy in my arms as the gravity of the situation hit me.  I was given the name and location of a verterinary oncologist who I called immediately and scheduled an appointment with. 

Monday August 24th we visited the oncologist.  More tests.  Further suspicion.  We were presented with options.  Our primary goal was total pain relief.  The best option in our opinion was amputation.  We were told that if we didn’t amputate the tumor would continue to destroy her bone and cause great pain and that in turn would end up requiring a lot of pain meds and very little time for Patches to survive.  Given how feisty she is we felt she could survive the surgery and make a good recovery.  Oh but one other thing…….there seemed to be a suspicious mass on one lung, perhaps a half centimeter.  The vet was kind, explained in lay terms what she thought was going on.  I’m a registered dietitian who worked in a hospital on the oncology wing with 25 years in with J&J presently in an oncology role with the company.  I put it in medical terms.  Metastasis.  The cancer most likely spread.  I know the drill.  The vets talk in “possibly” and “strong suspicion”.  I talk in realistic terms.  Canine OSA is aggressive.  The first place it goes is to their lungs.  The math was simple but awful.  I didn’t know I had that many tears to cry.  I felt hopeless. 

On August 27th Patches has her left foreleg removed.  It was heartbreaking to just look at her.  She had a fentanyl patch for pain plus rimidyl.  To our surprise she walked out of the vets office, came home, ate and took a nap.  As of today she is taking NO pain medication, digging with her one paw and barking at her favorite frenemy.  She even ran to “greet” her.  She had her stitches removed yesterday.  While in the vets office she peed on their welcome mat and harrassed a dog 4 times her size.  No need to ask what she thinks of the vet and the office.

I have a consultation with the oncologist on Tuesday.  The original plan was 5 cycles of carboplatin………only if Patches can tolerate it with few side effects and NO pain.  After countless hours of research I found this site, tripawds, and am now armed with a plethora of information, questions and a whole new set of options.  There is joy in my dogs eyes.  She is happy again, eating like a champ and snuggling like a bug in a rug on steroids lol.  She is a fighter at heart, a survivor and we are doing everything in her best interest to give her as much good quality time as we possibly can.  She is like me, her mom.  I’m a fighter and a survivor.  Please, if you don’t mind, pray (to whatever God you want, believe in and think will do the most good) that we find a well tolerated alternative that will give Patches years and not just months back.  We love her and her brother loves her and we aren’t ready to face our life without her. 

More to come on her oncology visit.  Comments, information, words of encouragement and love emojis are all welcome.  Thank you for reading and taking this journey with us.  It means more than you know. 

xoxo