My now 6.5 year old boy Harvey about 14 months ago was diagnosed with late stage Lymphoma (signs of Leukaemia in his blood).
His been on Chemo ever since.
The early weeks were difficult, he went down hill, didn't want to eat and dropped from 23kg to under 17kg. With week break in treatment I got him eating and he picked up will. Since then Chemo is nothing more than a trip in the car and visit for treats to him.
The first 6 month round of treatment sadly only stayed off the horrible thing for 5-6 weeks when the protocol was stopped.
This same protocol (Vincristine, Cycolphosphamide, Doxorubicin) was restarted and was effective for around 4 months this time.
As this point it was decided to changed to a rescue protocol involving Actinomycin, Cytosine Arabinoside and Dexamethasone one week, and just Dex and Melphlan tablets the next.
This also had good effect for a few month, though now over the past few months resistance has become stronger and while his lymphnodes drop down, they grow larger over time still.
Last week we tried L-Asparaginase for the first time. It would hopefully/apparently totally knock the nodes down. Sadly not so, and no more effective than the previous rescue combo of 3x injections.
He goes back in today for treatment. The hope was I think for the L-Asparaginase to have more of an effect, perhaps knocking some resistant cells maybe allowing to see if Vincristine again would have had decent effect, but don't think this will happen now.
Still hold out for some magic drug or something hehe.
.......anyone?? lol
It's hard to just stop treating to the end as his still so happy and healthy, no one every believes that his dying from cancer. Diet here I've learnt is so so important.
I realise his time is very dated, so his a very spoilt dog doing heaps of things at the moment. Less than 2 weeks ago I had to put my younger less than 2 year old dog (Chilli) to sleep whom I'd partly got to give Harv a buddy in his final months.
She had a extremely rare brain cancer that had extended forward into her snout, only becoming obvious a long time later when it started to push her eye out. Inoperable and extensive. Esthesioneuroblastoma is the name they gave it. Apparently they had only human references to this due to it's rarity.
Not at all happy with this Cancer thing I must say
Here's Harvey at around 2
another more recent with poor Chilli, as you can still see he is so happy and healthy