Just thought I would update you on Sydney. It's been a few weeks since we started him on the metronomic protocol and artemisinin after his lone lung met grew to three 4/15/04. He gets 300mg doxycycline in the morning along with 2 fish oil capsules. At dinner, he gets two Pepcid AC following by dinner along with 15mg piroxicam. He gets 300mg arte 3 hours after dinner. Once a week, he gets 75mg cytoxan/cyclophosphamide.
Since we started him on this protocol, he seems to be more depressed and sad. He seems like he is struggling to take every step, but doesn't seem to be in pain. Of course, his favorite thing now that it's summertime is to be alert and watch for small lizards that love to play along our concrete retaining wall. Syd has found them for the first time and he just loves to stand there and hop up and down the wall with his rottie alert face on. He will do this for hours upon end. So I know that maybe he's just taking it easy, because if it's something he wants to do, he's alert and ready to go. He still gets tuckered out and seems to pant a lot more even when I think it's cooler, but he has no coughing, no blood that I can see in his urine (thanks Megan, for the suggestion to take a WHITE pie plate out there!). The only thing is getting him to drink enough for the 2-3 days following his cytoxan. I have tried putting salt water or chicken broth in his meals but he just won't drink much. I'll keep trying something. Syd also seems to be stumbling a lot more lately (like tripping over a small rug or while coming up stairs). He seems confused for a second, but then lays down and recovers. When is it a good time to take a break from arte? For those of you who have consulted with Dr. Hahn from Gulf Coast Vet Specialists concerning the metronomic protocol and arte, if you could let me know what all he said, just so we can compare notes!
But knowing that Syd is still here and alive, we still try and do things he likes to do. Including going for rides in the car and to the "swimming hole". On our property, my husband dug out a depression in the ground and made it like knee high (sometimes thigh high after it rains) deep and made a sloping end on it. It's just a mud hole, but the dogs just LOVE it. It's just the right size for 6 rotties! However he has to walk quite a ways to get to it and would eventually get out there but have to take short breaks. Also after he stands in the water for awhile and then gets out and suns himself, he seems tired. The other day while at Sam's Club, we saw a seasonal garden cart. It has large rubber tires, is metal, has a removable plastic liner, has four sides that come off and a large handle with an attachment that you can hook to your riding lawn mower to pull! It was like $74.88 and I've always wanted one for my gardening, so we bought one. A few days later, it had rained so we took everyone out to the swimming hole. I thought maybe Syd might like a ride back, so I took an old chaise lounge pad and put it in the bottom and headed to where everyone was swimming. My husband wanted something to sit on so he removed one of the side panels and we sat on it watching them swim. When it was time to head back to the house, we asked Syd if he wanted a ride. We told him to get up into the wagon and it's as if he knew what it was for. He hopped easily up into it and laid down with ease. We figured since he hasn't ridden in anything like that before, that he might get scared and try to jump out once it started being pulled, but he just sat there and enjoyed the ride back! We did it again yesterday, but this time I pulled him out there and pulled him back. He loves it! So for those of you looking for a neat wagon, it's very sturdy and can hold up to 1000 lbs. I'm trying to make a short video of him riding in it and tried to take a picture of him in it from the video so I'll see how it turns out.
Oh also even though we've only been on the protocol and arte for a few weeks, I went ahead and did a CBC on him (as my oncologist said I should look out for blood count drops and GI irritation with the cytoxan and doxycycline). My vet said everything looks good, the WBC and RBC are within normal range. He said the SEGS were high (83 and normal is 60-77) and his lymphocytes (Syd's at 9 and normal is 12-30) and monocytes (Syd is 1 with normal being 3-10) were slightly low, so he said just to keep an eye on it. Does anyone know what SEGS is or if those low numbers should be a concern? What should I be looking at for problems with the cytoxan or is that a urine culture that will need done? Thanks for the info! We'll be going back just after Syd's 9th birthday (which is June 13th) on June 17th to get his lung x-rays retaken. So keep him in your thoughts and prayers. He's one of the summer '03 dogs........
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