A Plan?

It looks like we'll be headed back to New York in December. Adrienne really hasn't had treatment since early October and we don't feel comfortable waiting for months to start another trial. I've been talking with Dr. O's office and they have a plan but I don't know the details yet since we played phone tag on Friday. I should know more Monday or Tuesday. Adrienne has been tired and has a cough, which is always concerning, but she's keeping up with school. She's eating a bit better now too with the help of mom's (that's me) matzo ball soup, Jewish penicillin as someone told me. At least she loves it.

Daniel lives in Santa Barbara. They evacuated just two blocks from his house but he's in an area with a voluntary evacuation. I told him to get out at the first sign of trouble and he promised he would. He's renting and has renter's insurance so there aren't any worries on that end but it's still quite scary when you watch the fires on TV.

Prince is having surgery on Tuesday. I'm nervous about it because of his age (12 years old) but he's always been in good health and Shelties can live a long, long time. He has just one large tumor that's attached to the liver at one point and the vet says most dogs do well after the removal. Still, he'll be in doggie ICU for a day or two. We hope he'll be able to come home on Wednesday afternoon.

Inconclusive pathology

I guess it's just as hard with dogs as with people. Prince's pathology came back with dysplastic spindle cells, which is a type of sarcoma, but there weren't enough cells to be sure. He seems happy, back to himself right now, eating and drinking well. Tomorrow, we're off to see the specialist to figure out what to do next. From what I read, they generally cut this type of cancer out unless it's too widespread, in which case there's nothing they can do. Even if they cut it out, it usually comes back within 6-12 months so we have some decisions to make.

Adrienne's cystitis is getting better, but overall, she's feeling worse with headaches, coughing, and shortness of breath. She's hardly left the house in days except to go to school or the clinic. Her labs and creatinine look good so those aren't responsible. I just hope this is something viral. I was fighting a really bad headache last week and she had it over the weekend so that makes me think she caught something from me. I'm trying hard to coax her to eat but she eats very little and is down to 101 pounds on her 5'5" frame. Her clothes are literally hanging on her. I always try to be positive but I'm definitely feeling a bit down right now. Let's all hope that this rights itself soon and she feels better.

It's not to be

Adrienne restarted the MGCD yesterday along with IV hydration. Her cystitis symptoms started within a few hours and have gotten progressively worse today so that she's taking Vicodin every 2-3 hours and passing tissue in her urine. We just hope that it doesn't escalate to the level it was before with large blood clots. It's like when you have a cut and it scabs over, then you do something to knock the scab off. Needless to say, she won't be continuing on the trial. We don't have any plans yet but hope that she can take a few months off to recuperate before starting another trial.

We had another scare today with Prince who's been a bit lethargic, not eating for a few days. We took him to the vet (they're open on the weekends) and at first it looked like he had a big tumor in his liver. Now it's looking like a cyst but we won't know for sure until the pathology is back on Monday. We're hoping that this can just be drained, but it's quite large, doubling the size of his liver and pushing on his stomach, poor boy. The vet wanted to keep him for IV hydration but we decided to bring him home because we thought he'd be happier here. He ate a little bit tonight though we're having trouble getting fluids into him. At least he doesn't seem to have any pain.

Here's Prince (on the left) and Caesar. Prince is 12 years old now but still walks 3 miles most days.

Treatment Restarted

I'm just posting a quick note since it was a really long day. Adrienne was able to start chemo again today but her BP was very low so she had to stay for fluids. Add to that, the lab was really slow so they couldn't order chemo until they were back. Her creatinine is still a bit high but it came down enough for treatment. And good news today, Bekah's trial with LBH589 is working!!!! Go Bekah.