Merry Christmas from Gaby!

Merry Christmas,

I just wanted to post a message and say thanks to everyone out there who has helped my dogs and my wife and I make it through all of the pain and everything associated with dealing with cancer: Dr. B, Dr Olby, Jane, everyone at NC State Vet school and everyone at Gentle Care, my friends and family. God Bless each and every one of you.

A very good friend of mine recently told me that he has testicular cancer. He is a very young guy and you just never know with this thing. I want to tell him that I understand and have been there but I feel kind of funny since the cancer I dealt with was for my dogs. I know how some people feel that dogs are not that important as people but it depends. I'm more of a "master" than a "father" but my feelings for Gambit and Gaby are very real and I experienced real pain first from learning that both of my dogs had cancer to dealing with a convalencent dog to being there when Gambit breathed his last breath as the drugs that put him to sleep coursed through his veins.

I didnt' think I could ever survive losing Gambit and now looking at Gaby, I don't see how I can survive when she is gone. But I quickly push that thoughts away and enjoy the time that I have now. I'll get down on the floor beside her and pet her. She gets so excited when I get on the floor as she just lifts her front paw and puts in on my arm as if guiding my hand to her tummy where she likes scratching the best.

Gaby is doing great right now and I am taking advantage of every opportunity I have to give and receive love.

Here's to a healthy 2009!

Love you, Big Boy!

Today it has been exactly one year since Gambit passed.

I remember it like it happened 1 minute ago...it was a Sunday morning and a very nice day. The day before, a Saturday, our really good friend, Bill Downy had come over to hang out. Bill and Nancy our some of our best friends and Nancy was not in town that weekend. Bill , Jennifer, Gambit, Gaby and I milled around the pool, drank beer and played with the dogs.

Late that afternoon, Jennifer had fixed us some munchies and we all ate in the backyard around the table. We had pretty much finished eating and of course Gambit and Gaby were waiting for the table scraps. Well, a piece of tortilla chip had fallen off the table and Gambit instead of walking around the table, tried to go through it. He got his body stuck 1/2 way through but kept on going. We had to quickly grab the rest of the food and beer off of the table quickly before he knocked it all off. We laughed like hell and Bill commented that Gambit was strong as an ox still and doing very well. Truth is, he had a great day that Saturday. With his cancer getting worse, he had a mixture of bad days and good day but lately, he had a lot of great days.

His last full day alive he had an awesome day. But that was Gambit for you, he always made it easy on us, even up until the very end.

We let him sleep outside that night. It was going to be cool and he preferred it anyways. He was an outside dog. Before we went to bed, we said goodnight and went upstairs to sleep. I got up early the next morning. Usually, I fix my coffee first and mess around on the computer until Jennifer gets up. Thinking back, it was weird that I immediately went out to get the Sunday paper. When I walked back up the driveway, Gambit was laying beside his favorite truck, our Toyota pickup. We had that truck when we got him in 1994 and we still have it. He always layed beside that truck. I went up beside him and asked him if he was hungry but he didn't move. I knelt down and tried to move him but he didn't respond at all. He was still breathing but it was labored and his eyes were not responding at all. I screamed at Jennifer "Something's wrong with Gambit!". When she came down we both knew, we knew....

Just a few minutes ago Jennifer brought down his candle that my Mom got us for remembering. Like my brother Ryan we burn a candle for him every August 20 his birthday. Jennifer also brought out his lock of hair. Its funny we used to not be able to get rid of Gambit's hair around the house, now we can't find it.

Love you big boy.

Hello ECU Students of ICTN6865

For my graduate school studies, I am currently enrolled in a Fundamental Network Security distance education class at East Carolina University. For our class introduction, I had to provide a personal web site if I had one. Well, I posted this site as my personal site so if anyone from class this semester checks it out for fun, welcome!

Gaby is going to Hatteras with us this week. The only concern I have is how she handles walking thru the thick sand. I have a wheelbarrow that I plan on carrying her to the beach with. Plus since you can drive on the sand out there, we will be driving to the beach alot.

I'll have pictures next week.

Update for Gaby

It has been awhile since I last updated this blog for Gaby but she has been behaving like a normal dog for the past few months now. We couldn't be happier with how her health has turned out. She has plenty of energy, she plays with her toys (she loves her Moo dog and squeaky toy that Dr. B gave her), she eats, drinks and goes to the bathroom normally.

There has been a rabbit in the yard lately that Gaby loves to watch from the bay window. All I have to do is walk over to the window and she follows. She will look around and around the yard for her rabbit buddy.

Here is a pic:

Gaby did well on her last doxirubicin treatment

Gaby had her last Dox treatment at the beginning of June. Her "hot" days are days 3-5 after her Dox treatments and she always is a little down on those days. This last time was no exception - she was down but today is about a week and she is perking back up again.

She has a vincristine treatment next week, then another 3 weeks later and one last one 2 weeks later and she will then be totally off all drugs.

We also took her off of the prednisone and as i figured, she doesn't follow me into the kitchen for snacking. The downside to that is that she is a little stiffer in her joints.

Almost to the end...

Gaby is doing pretty well and is almost to the end of her protocol! I know it has been nearly a month since I have last posted but for whatever reason I have not been inspired to blog. We gave her a bath last Saturday with the shampoo that our friend Nancy J. brought us back from California. It has a nice lavender scent and it is from the Sonoma Valley I think.

Our family came in for Father's Day. Gaby really had a good time. Everybody commented on how good she looked and how nice her coat was. It was the lavendar soap, we explained. ha ha. She still is skinny as heck underneath all of that fur and you can see it when she is wet from her bath.

When your dog is on chemo you have to watch out for any gunk that forms underneath of their mouth! This is very important! We didn't even know this until the last vet visit. The vet pointed it out to us and told us to make sure to wash it off immediately. What can happen is a gunk forms around the bottom of her lips, crusts over and infection can form. Once the infection starts it is nearly impossible to get it under control. This happens to a lot of dog chemo patients.

This thursday is Gaby's last dox treatment and after that it is just pills. I'm so proud of her for being a strong dog through all of this. She looked and seemed to feel great around the family yesterday.

Week 9: 2nd Dox day - Everything OK.

Everything went very well with Gaby's Dox day this week, the second Dox treatment in her 12 week protocol. Man, with all of the chemicals going in her - the Doxirubicin treatment plus the prednisone, cytoxin, etc, I can't believe one poor little delicate flower can take all of that.

I notice that she sits up and pants alot after her Vet days. I don't think it really matters what she gets at the vet, she stresses. I can look in her eyes the days after her Dox days and can see that she struggles with the drugs corsing thru her veins.

Am I doing the right thing? Is it right with this world that I delay her inevitable demise by buying her a year or two? The days when I really look in her eyes after a heavy dose of drugs the answer is No. She seems to ask me "Daddy, Please let me go.".

The other 6 days a week I see a "I don't know what you are talking about Daddy, Fuck it, let's party!" I think for 90 percent of the time, we are doing the right thing.

Week 8 - Gaby loves to go to the vets!

I noticed this week that Gaby loves to go to the vets now. This morning was the day after her week 8 Visticrine treatments and both Jennifer and I were leaving for work. We had Gaby go outside and she immediately went to my car as if she were going bye-bye. I couldn't convince her that she wasn't going with me.

Yesterday, I didn't even have to put her on the leash when I got her out of the car to get her blood drawn for the CBC. She leaped from the car and walked to the door to go inside. Once inside, she is the best girl! She stays right beside me until I sit down and then comes up to me to be petted until the vet tech comes back to take her in the backroom. She really doesn't shake anymore while waiting which makes me think she is very comfortable in that building now.

Dr. B told my wife when she picked her up that she thought Gaby was telling her something. She tolerated her treatments ok but was exhibiting strange behaviour. She would come over and put her head on the side of Dr. B's leg wherever she was in the room. Dr. B thought Gaby was trying to tell her that her ears were bothering her. Jennifer laughed and told Dr. B that Gaby only does that for a few people and it means that Gaby trusts her. Gaby even fell asleep in Dr. B's arms while she was getting treatments.

It seems that Gaby considers Dr. B part of the family now.

Last Tuesday, Gaby had some tummy issues again. We had to get her some meds again for that but now she seems to be OK again. Those goldens sure have sensitive tummies.

More good news that her CBC this week showed increase white blood cell counts.

Treatment and the nausea bug

After Gaby's first Doxorubicin treatment she did great! She was more easily fatigued around day 3-5 after treatment but seemed to get back to playing with "moo" - her favorite toy.

Her white blood cell count came back this week and good news, it was back to normal. Dr. B said Gaby was an angel and laid on the rubber mat to get her meds. Then she took in a staff meeting where Dr. B's daughter brushed and petted her.

Everything was great up for her next Visticrine treatment yesterday and Gaby seemed fine. Today, she was kissed goodbye for the day and fed. When I got home, I noticed that Gaby would not eat. I looked outside for signs of vomiting and found it right away. Dr. B prescribed nausea meds and GI protectant (the same as she was given described a few posts back) and that did the trick in 3 hours. Gaby is doing well tonight and ate a plain meal of boiled chicken and white rice. She ate all of that and wanted more.

(First post by guest author: Jennifer! Love you, sweetie! typed by fw)

A little more on the low white blood cell count

As I stated in my last post, Gaby was delayed from her 7th week of treatment due to red flags raised at the labs.

her energy levels have seem to wane a little from last weekend until yesterday. Just a little as she still played during her normal times - when Jennifer gets home she wants to play until I get home. Then we go outside in the yard and hang out until dinner.

Her stool has been as soft as I had seen it since this first started. Good news is that today it has seemed to clear up. Her energy level has also been really good today.

You ought to see the trends that the graphs from her blood work show! Her white cell count peaked around April 16 and then slowly declined at steady levels until this past Wednesday when they were really low. So, we had flags from the labs. Hopefully her increased energy levels today mean that we are past that point and we are starting on the way up. I wonder what happened on April 16? Was that the day we started her Cytoxan pills every other day? Could that be affecting her this much? It definitely was not the Dox, she just had her first dose last week. She was declining at least 2 weeks from then.

The lab work sheets show alot of interesting information, especially if you follow the trends.

Another delay.

One thing that we noticed since Gaby's chemo treatments was her acute sense of obedience! A silver lining, if you will. She does about everything that you tell her. Well, not everything! She didn't listen to Jennifer when a stray cat goes running from under our deck into the woods. Gaby gave a good chase. Most of the time I don't even need to leash her to take her to the vet office if I don't want to. She jumps down from the car, trots over, and stands at the front door waiting to be let in.

(Here is a picture of Gambit and Gaby around 2002.)

She is getting used to the vet's office. She still shivers a little but she seems less reluctant to go through the back door into the exam rooms. I still have to get up and act like I'm walking back but I don't need to walk all the way back to the back. She gets it and just goes on.

We are now a week after the dox treatment and Gaby is due for her 7th week treatment, according to the protocol that we are following. The 7th treatment is a light week with a CBC and Visticrine. At home, we are giving her the Cytoxin every other day. One of these posts, I will post the entire 12 week protocol that we are following as I just realized that I never have done that.

Well, Gaby's white blood cell count is down today and we postponed her next treatment by a week. This is about our 3rd delay due to one thing or another. It will give her a chance to rest.

Dox day is over.

Gaby is doing really well after her first treatment on the dox drug. After last week's test came back with some concerns, we postponed her dox treatment until yesterday. Dox has a cumulative affect on a dog's heart once given that really won't heal back up. The next dose will further weaken her heart. However, a lot of dogs will go into remission for years when on this particular protocol so we are very optimistic.

Especially since Gaby is doing so well. She spent all day from 8am to 5pm at Dr. B's office. When I went to pick her up she was very happy to see me and she came right over and wanted immediate petting.

The techs and everyone there at our new vets are special people. They gave Gaby a purple heart for making it through 1/2 way.

Here is a pic:

One week reprieve..

By the way, I'm caught up with my backlog of blog entries so I am up to real time updating now. This is the 7th week of Gaby's chemo, I believe... it's either the 7th or the 8th week. I'm kinda off since Gaby had a week off earlier in her treatments also.

This past week was supposed to be her first dox dose. Our vet does a great job of making sure everything is in order before doing any treatments. Unfortunately, sometimes this means more $$$ for tests or meds or time. This past week was time.

Gaby went in last Tuesday, April 15th 2008 for a long day of dox. The reason was that there were some variables on her liver function when we had her tested. We wanted to make sure her liver was doing it's job once her food was injested. She went into the vet on a 24 hour fast and once they did the test, they fed her and then did the liver test.

We wanted to stay on our Tuesday schedule so we waited another week. In addition, our vet is a part time doctor so we wanted to work on Tuesday so that our vet was doing all of the treatments. So, this Tuesday is our new first dox date.

Another thing is that we finally got our Cytoxin tabs from Canada. It took about 14 days for the pills to get here so that was not too bad.

When we take Gaby into the vet office, she gets so shaky! The nerves gets to her so badly that I feel bad for her. When the tech comes to get her, Gaby goes straight for the out door. She trusts me so I have to walk her and the tech back to the backroom. Gaby puts her head pasted right to your leg.

The 'easy' weeks for Gaby.

March 18 - April 8, 2008.

This is as easy as it gets in the chemotherapy world! Gaby went through an easy regiment for 3 weeks after a 2 week cycle of Vistincrine and Elspar. For those 3 weeks, Gaby just received Vistincrine and no Elspar.

Another thing that we found made it very easy on Gaby was that the vet allowed us to bring her in the morning to get her blood and then take her back home until it was time for the Vist. The first 2 weeks when Gaby got home, she had been so worked up by staying at the vets all day that she was so thirsty! She must have just stressed herself up so much that she panted heavily all day. You see, Gaby is not very socialized. We have a fenced in yard that she has lived in her entire life. She loved her brother Gambit but never got a chance to go out and get used to outsiders and other dogs.

My wife in the mean time has done some research on the Internet on this subject and decided to give Gaby additional supplements to help her body with the treatments. The vet really didn’t mention any supplements but I believe they will do her a great deal of good.

Arginine (1000 MG / day)– amino acid that helps with metabolic stabilization.
Fish oil (4000mg / per day) Recommended 1000MG per every 20lbs of dog) – omega 3
Glutamine (1500 mg / day)– got this in powder form. The clerk had recommended the powder over liquid to save a little money.

We also got her Iams Puppy Chow because it was highest in protein and lowest in carbs. The reason is that is used sorghum fillers instead of wheat.

She has shown a little weight loss which is concerning. Day 11, Thursday evening she started to show loss of appetite for the first time. The next morning she was very reluctant to eat and had to be hand fed. Ate the rest because we put egg on her food. 15 minutes after she ate she vomited. Jennifer went to the vet that afternoon to get extra medication for Gaby’s naseua. Later Dr Bowden sent an email saying that she feared that we were in for a rough weekend! We also discontinued the prednisone on the recommendation of the vet until Monday because her tummy needed a rest. I remember that when Gambit was taking pred for his cancer that he also took tummy meds to help him out.

Metoclopramide 10MG – sub q injection : for naseau
1 hour later – Sucralfate 1MG – dissolved in water orally: GI protectant
Mitazapine 30MG :
30 minutes later: Pepcid 10MG for acid


1 hour after injection she showed signs of improvement but she was reluctant to take oral medication. Coaxed them down anyway. 1 hour and ½ later her appetite returned and fed on her own.

The next morning she needed some coaxing for her food so we added some egg and she ate the entire thing with no problem.

Continued to eat with egg and continued GUI protectant and Pepcid for a week.

By the second easy week Gaby was eating without much help (Benefuls or Chicken stock helpers in her food). She seems to feel great. The prednisone has turned her into a begging mess however. She acts just like Gambit did on his pred.... everytime I get up to go into the kitchen, Gaby gets up and follows me. I guess I must snack too much! Gambit did the same thing and now I know that the pred must be making her crazy.

The only thing that has changed on the drugs is that we found Cytoxan pills online at a Canadian pharmacy. This is a pill that is supposed to be given with the protocol that we are using but they are on backorder in the US. We told our vet of our find and she checked the site out. She reported back that she was amazed at the price, nearly a 5-1 savings. She wrote us an Rx and we called the pharamacy. We bought 100 pills at 50MG for $90.

I was thinking that if we were going along ok without the pills, why would we all of a sudden start giving it to her? It was explained to me that this gives her a much better chance of staying in remission by giving her the pills. Why go thru all of this shit and then skimp out on these pills? Espcecially since we found them and they are so cheap compared with the rest of the $$.

We have one more week of easy before the big guns are brought out. For that, I am nervous.

About Gaby and the beginning of her treatment for Lymphoma

March 5, 2008

Gaby is a 10 year old Golden Retriever who has always been in generally good health prior to her chemotherapy treatments. Dr. Bowden our vet has a 12 week protocol for chemotherapy that involves Elspar, Vincristine, Cyclosphosamide and Doxorubicin.

Gaby got home on March 5, 2008 after her first visit to the vets to start her chemo treatment for lyphoma. She had the following drugs:

IV Cath
Benadryl Injection
Elspar 10,000 IU Vial
Vincristine 1MG

After getting home from her first treatments she used the bathroom normally, drank normally. She was dosed with 20MG of Prednisone the next morning. She seemed in a good mood and played with us in the yard. She went for walks outside. Her stool was normal and not running like some have reported. She seemed to have a good appetite.

The Elspar is one of the big gun drugs of chemotherapy. She gets one more dose and then gets just the Vincristine for 3 weeks until the Dox. We are worried about the dox because it is said to have a cumulative affect on the dog’s heart.

My wife did not agree but to me she just seemed different. Maybe it was my paranoia but the life behind her eyes are different. They don’t seem to have the same sparkle as even 2 weeks ago.

Gaby has turned to an old dog right in front of my eyes.

On to the vet.

"Visiting a new vet."

Jennifer and I had been taking our dogs to the same vet here in Raleigh for the past 10 years. For maintenance, they seemed to be pretty good and even the K9 officers take some of their dogs there. We just felt that this group of doctors did not take the time to get a good diagnosis.

For example, with our first dog Gambit. He started having these head-tilt episodes for a few months before we found out that he had a brain tumor. Our regular vet had seen him twice and kept insisting it was an ear infection. That made sense to us, he was always having dirty ears from laying in the dirt all day especially in the summers. Finally when we took Gambit to NC State the neurologist immediately told us that she thought Gambit had a brain tumor and it turned out that she was right!

Well, here we go again... we had just had Gaby into our regular vet for a checkup. Out of all of those 10 years, I don't think these vets gave our dogs a good, hands on exam. Both times when we found out that our dogs could possibly be cancerous, it was diagnosed by a hands-on exam!

If there is anything that I can convey, it is this.... if your regular vet does not perform good exams just rubbing all over your dogs body with just their hands, go directly to another vet.

It's that simple.

"When was the last time you saw your regular vet?"

My wife and I had taken our youngest golden retriever - Gaby - to have her knee evaluated at NC State's animal rehab clinic. Four years ago she was chasing rabbits in our yard and came limping back. Her ACL was ripped up! She recovered well from that surgery and really had no lasting effects other than a little muscle denegeration around her thigh and thicking on the knee cartilige.

We wanted to do what we could for her since she was only our second dog. You see our first, best and most wonderful of all dogs, Gambit, had just passed away in September 2007. (Leave future link to Gambit's blog.)We had motivation to make the best life for Gaby and was almost doing it for Gambit. We told Gambit when he died that we would take good care of his sister.

We sat down with the rehab doctor - Dr. Kevin Jones - for his first look at Gaby. He started out with the normal hands on exam going over her body starting from the head down. He had just put his hands on her when he asked us that question: "When was the last time you took her to your regular vet?". I immediately thought nothing of it. "Why?" we asked.... "You may want to take her as soon as possible." "She may have lymphoma."