First day o Radiation

I printed a ‘radioactive’ sign out and stuck it on our front door, I thought it was hilarious but nobody seems to know what it is… oh well.

Honey had her first radiation treatment yesterday – they put her out for about an hour and got her positioning all set up – the marks on her face (you can see them better if you click on the image) are a map of where to direct the proton stream (energize!) and will be there for the entire month. Unfortunately, her left eye will be in the stream at all times – something we really were hoping to avoid, as it causes dry eye (possibly chronic) and increases her chances of cataracts in 5 years or so – but as Cameron told the vet, ‘if we get to experience cataracts in five years we’ll enjoy every minute of it.’ and we will.

Last night she was totally fine – playing ball, catching it in midair, demanding food, she was total Hun. They did say that her mouth will get sore, so we’ve ordered canned food so the hard food won’t hurt her. I’m anticipating problems if her lips get painful, as she still needs us to hold one of them up so she can breathe, if they’re burned or raw it will be really tough for her to tolerate us holding them. I guess that's when the pain / sleeping pills will get used. I’m also concerned that any soreness in her mouth will be exacerbated by dryness which happens when she breathes using the ‘lifted lip’ method. I think I have a schematic for a lip-holder, right now we’re using a plastic cork (from a wine bottle) we’ve sawed in half (long ways) but it keeps falling out. If I can orchestrate the thing I’m thinking of I’ll post a picture. It’s really cute, though, she knows what the cork is and that it helps her breathe so she just lets us do it. Love that dog. I think she's also figured out that if she falls asleep with a ball in her mouth and her head over someon'e leg she can breathe around the ball, as illustrated. This also has the added bonus of insuring Cameron can't leave, as she's sleeping on him.

Today is day 2 of radiation – each session after the first lasts about 20 minutes, with the dog ‘laughingas-ized’ for about 15 minutes and a 1-2 minutes pulse of that tumor-shrinkin’ goodness. She’ll have 20 treatments in total, so every weekday in February. Poor baby. But I actually did manage to sleep last night, which is so freakin cool I can’t stand it. There was a minor cork-readjust from around 3-4 am but other than that all went well for me. Cameron has miserable allergies, and we can’t seem to fix them. No amount of vacuuming or febreze allergen reducer or swiffering seems to help. It really sucks to have two sickies at once, especially as they’re both having trouble breathing , and both from the left sides of their nose…. Maybe we ought to get Cam zapped while we’re at it.

8 years of Honeydog

Eight years ago today I was standing in the Leon County Humane Society parking lot trying to convince a 4 month old Honeydog to get in the backseat of my 1981 Monte Carlo. This after I had spent 35 minutes convincing the cranky woman behind the counter that I would not, in fact, dump the puppy off in the woods anywhere or neglect to feed it, bathe it, or give it water, and that I would get it vaccinated yearly. It couldn’t have been clearer that she fully expected the dog to be dropped off at the pound again with a few weeks, at most. I’ve thought about sending the humane society a letter a few times, maybe with a photo of Honey in one of the weirder places she’s been, like the Native American Museum in the Painted Desert or the Versace store on South Beach, or one of the many, many National Forests around the country, and thanking them for letting me adopt her. I don’t know if this is motivated by the total worthless feeling I get whenever I think of that evil woman who clearly thought I was going to mistreat the dog, and a need to say to them “see?!?!?! I’ still a good mommy, you meanies” or what. I’m sure they can’t still remember her, she was a little pitmix puppy in a shelter about 2 hours from death eight years ago. I remember also that evening my mother, apoplectic, telling me that I had made a stupid decision that I would “regret for years” by adopting her. You would have thought I was pregnant at 12 or something. I seriously have no idea why nobody thought I could handle a dog. Turns out, though, being adopted by Honey was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ve been incredibly privileged to share the past eight years with her, and it must be that I’m so profoundly grateful for her that I feel the need to thank anyone, the vets, the people at the pound, even though they could not have been plainer that they thought I was a horribly undeserving person, strangers who pet her on the street, and everyone who’s nice to her, from the bottom of my heart. I really should be thanking her, but how do you thank a dog? With veal? With cuddles? With neck rubs and medicine when she needs it? balls or carrides? I’ve been trying to figure that out for eight years. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

I just figured out you can add pictures....

This is like a hundred years old, no gray hair even. Im my parents house in Tallahassee, Fl.

Honeydog in her favorite baby blanket in our apartment in Jacksonville, around 2004.

Honey and the late, great Champion in my truck in the Aapalachicola National Forest. 2003-ish

On the beach in Jacksonville, 2005 just after we moved there. She used to like to bark at the surfers, and knew a few of them. Dogs aren't allowed off leash on jax beach :(

Here is a teensy selection of photos of my Honeydog. She started radiation today and I haven't seen her since Cameron picked her up from the vet but I've been told she's snoozing on our bed and getting coddled, which I don't doubt. My plan for this evening is to cook and be near my doggiegirl.

First experience with snow, inCouldcroft, NM in 2006. She tried to eat it.

Honey and I in the Painted Desert, winter 2006 moving to LA roadtrip. it was the 100 year anniversary of the park, and we werethe only people there. they let Honey come in and share apple cider and sugar cookies they had as part of the celebration. There is a view from one of the mountains in the park that's 130 miles.

Honey on the beach in Santa Barbara in 2006 or early '07, the first time she was in the Pacific ocean. We finished our cross-country trip, Jacksonville to Los Angeles, in 6 days, then the next weekend we went to the dog beach in Santa Barbara.

This is Lyle Lovett Honeydog "on her way through Houston, headed for L.A." in my truck.

Piggy Hun

I’m going to start calling Honey 'piggy' because she snorts when she breathes now. I was up all night again holding her lip up (see lovely image) so she can breathe through her mouth, which is something she won’t do on her own. So unless she’s playing, and therefore panting, or lying on her side next to me while I prop her lip up and try not to move and wake her up, she still tries to breathe through her nose, which is completely occluded and therefore impossible. Poor baby. She also really (really) likes it when I rub her nose / face / neck, so I’ve been doing that a lot. Fortunately, we have a cable subscription that includes like 10 movie channels, so I was watching movies (Father of the Bride parts 1 and 2, Anastasia, Harry Potter 4, and Robin Hood Men in Tights) all night instead of infomercials on Lifetime. Cameron had the morning off so I went to the grocery store and I’m planning on making chili and then banana bread. I wanted Cameron to take a loaf of it to the oncologist with Honey tomorrow, but I’m thinking maybe I should send something prepackaged instead? When I worked in the public library insane people used to bake things and bring them to us, and we always threw them away (I know that sounds awful, but they also brought us dead seagulls and used hypodermic needles, so it really wasn't overly dramatic). I remember this one guy brought me fried chicken. Absurd. Anyways, on our first visit to the cancer ver I told them that she had a low tolerance to pain meds that “she must have inherited from me” and produced a chronologically-organized folder of all her medical records, including receipts, from the papers I signed at the pound when I was adopting her to the most recent, and had a corresponding notebook I had my questions for the vet outlined in, and took notes in while we talked (in different colored ink, so I could track who said what) so I’m fairly sure they already think I’m a wacko, but hopefully if I send baked goods they won’t think I’m a loon / crazed killer, because tomorrow is the 8th anniversary of the day I adopted Honey, and I’m encouraged that she’ll be starting treatment on that date. Also, I have a really kickass recipe for banana bread, and I'm grateful that those people do what they do, because without them she would have no chance.



On another note, I’m compiling some of the sources I used while I was researching canine chondrosarcoma. Most of the stuff I could find online was really old, from around 2000 or 2001, and the oncologist didn’t have any journal articles or current research on hand. It doesn’t help that my passwords from college to their knowledge base have expired and I can’t log in and search there. Here are a few of the REPUTABLE sources I have found:

The Merck Veterinary Manual:
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp
standard book for vets, searchable online and current.

Entrez Pubmed:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/
Pubmed was developed by the National Library of Medicine as a free resource for doctors worldwide, and the standard language is English. It’s pretty clunky to search, especially if you haven’t had exposure to it before, but it frequently includes research into canine and other animal conditions as well as those of humans. I once found a study of the long term effects of woman aged 18 – 24 who took Maxalt, a migraine medicine I had just been prescribed. It was great.

Chondrosarcoma Support Group:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Chondrosarcoma/


Remember, if you’re searching for medical information to not look just that the date at the bottom on the webpage, that reflects the update date, not necessarily the age of the information. The first article found on Google about Chondrosarcoma in dogs was from 2000, and terribly outdated. Also, Chondrosarcoma is good for comparative medicine, as it has many of the same characteristics in different species.

Saturday 02/02/08

Last night we figured the sleeping thing out. Since she won’t or can’t breathe out of her mouth, and hasn’t been sleeping, we were dealing with a lethargic honeydog who made some truly horrible and pathetic noises trying to breathe through blocked nasal passages. So Thursday night Cameron discovered that if you pulled her lip up she could breathe out the side of her mouth and actually get some (much needed) air, and therefore sleep. It was really sad; she was so exhausted that if you gave her a totally open airway while she was standing, she would almost fall asleep on her feet. So yesterday I worked from home and when I knocked off for the day around six I rubbed her ears with some lavender oil (aromatherapy for sleepy) and then held her lip up, and she immediately fell into this deep twitchy sleep. Sometimes her tongue would get in the way of her breathing, and she was so out I could put my finger in her mouth and move her jaw/tongue around so she had an airway and it didn’t wake her up. So we spent about three hours yesterday evening sleeping like that, and then played for a while and then went to bed the same way. She figured out exactly what I was trying to do and is now not only letting me stick fingers near her mouth (normally she HATES that) but also requesting it. So that’s what we did yesterday, how we all (finally) got some sleep last night, and that’s all we’ve done so far today. She clenches her jaw when she sleeps, so that’s why she wouldn’t (couldn’t? I can’t believe that anyone is that stubborn – even her) open her mouth before, and would have probably have to either be drugged to the gills or passed out to actually do it. She’ll sleep for about 2 hours then wake up and demand some food, we’ve started putting warm water on her food so she can smell it and its not so hard in her mouth on the biopsy site, want a massage, bring me the ball, then back to sleep. It also seems like the anti-inflammatories are starting to help her breathe as well, as she seems to be able to breathe a little better out her nose.

Anyways, the water was out in the building when I woke up this morning but it looks like its back on, and I’ve watched like four episodes of Antiques Roadshow, where people seem to get values on how ugly things are – “oh, it’s hideous. Insure it for around $5,000” also, who buys that stuff? I remember one episode where this lady had what she thought was a decorated salad bowl and it turned out to be a ceremonial hat form some completely eradicated Inuit tribe, and was worth more then I’ll make in a lifetime. I’m waiting for someone to respond to the appraiser’s value with “wanna buy it?” that’s totally what I’d do.

An orange ball just appeared in my lap. It seems it's playtime. Since we actually got her to sleep, we have our Honey back.

Cool news

The aspirate of Honey's lymph node came back "awesomely clean" so it has not moved to her lymph system. That is very, very cool. Like, WOOO HOOOO! And since it's not in her lungs either, double WOOO HOOOO! She also managed to sleep a little tonight - granted I was sitting next to her holding her mouth open, but hey, I’ll take it where I can get it.

Also, we're starting radiation on the 8th anniversary of my adopting Honey (2/4). I'm taking that as a good sign.

And I'm getting a ball shoved in my face, so I’m off for some fetch....

Diagnosis and the vet

We saw the radiation oncologist yesterday – (http://www.cityofangelsvets.com/) his offices are nicer than any doctor’s office I’ve ever been in, by far, and the staff / doctors were all incredibly nice. Honey wasn’t afraid of it one bit, which was odd seeing as the last time she went to the vet (Monday the 28th) she was sedated, biopsies were taken, and she had to spend the night. The practice ONLY treats cancer patients, there were a bunch of prednisone-chunky half-haired doggies in the waiting room and they all seemed pretty happy to be there, so we took that as a good sign.

We met with the vet for about 2 hours, and he feels she’s a good candidate for ‘definitive radiation’ which means radiation treatment with the goal of remission or tumor elimination. We’re not sure if her cancer is an oral chondrosarcoma or a nasal chondrosarcoma, which means there’s no way of telling if it started in her mouth or in her nose, but it’s in both now. The survival rates for these types of cancers are comparable – 1-2 years for nasal with treatment, 16-24 months for oral with treatment. We decided to go for it, and she will get 20 doses of radiation – once daily, Monday – Friday for 4 weeks. We hope to start Monday, the 4th, which is the 8th anniversary of the day I adopted her from the humane society in Leon County, but it depends on her ‘plan’ being completed by then. They have a 3 view CT scan of her tumor and will enter it into a program (developed for human treatment) that will determine the best angles for the radiation to be directed, and the position she will need to be in for the treatment. Her first appointment should last an hour or so, where they arrange her position and take a bunch of xrays to make sure the tumor is in the target area, but after that the treatments will take about 15 minutes. They twilight her (thing laughing gas, like the dentist) and put her in the position the plan formulated, and then zap her. It’s just gas, so it’s not total anesthesia and not as dangerous.

The doctor is one of like 16 board certified radiation oncologists in the US, and he is directly responsible for the radiation of every animal. Everyone who deals in any way with the radiation and plan design is board certified, ahs had experience in both human and animal radiation treatment and has over 4 years experience of working with him directly, so we’re confident they know what they’re doing. He aspirated the lymph node nearest the tumor to make sure it hasn’t spread there, and gave her some anti-inflammatories and a sleeping pill (she’s having trouble breathing out of her nose, and for some reason WILL NOT breathe out of her mouth) so the plan was the antinflamatories would make it easier for her to breathe, maybe open up more of an airway, and the sleeping pills would zonk her to the point where she wouldn’t worry about breathing and wouldn’t wake up every minute or so to gasp for air, because her body will naturally open her mouth and take care of it. Too bad that’s not what happened at all – she spent the entire night trying to breathe out of a completely clogged nasal passage, and every 15-20 seconds would gasp for air (really loudly) through her mouth, but still wouldn’t open her mouth to breathe. Cameron and I spent the entire night holding her lips up so she could breathe out of the sides of her mouth and maybe get a little sleep. Result was that we got none and she got a teensy bit of gasping snooze.

I just spoke to the vet and apparently we didn’t give her enough of a does, as we only gave her half a pill, so tonight I’m supposed to give her more and completely wreck her so she’ll sleep. He also said that there is a chance the tumor is growing so fast that it’s occluding her nasal passages, which would be “really really rare” but if that were the case it would affect her chances of a remission. There’s just no good news, is there? Anyway, I’m feeling awful for giving her a dose which made her suffer all night, and freaked her out so much, so tonight ill give her a full pill and “watch her closely for the first hour or so to make sure she’s still breathing” well, you can just rock me to sleep tonight. Thank god tomorrow’s Saturday and it doesn’t matter if I’m a totally and complete zombie. Maybe I can get someone to come over and sit with me and the (hopefully sleeping) Hun tonight while Cameron’s at work, so I don’t lose my shit and freak her out in the process.