Thank you to everyone for supportive comments and messages! You all have no idea how much it helps! Last night I said “you are right, Jerry. Thank you.” There is no way to know how long a lung met will stay there, not growing or multiplying. If it weren’t for the study we are on, we probably would never know. Caira Sue certainly doesn’t act sick. And our finances certainly wouldn’t support monthly x-rays and such!
And Tazzie, we love our new nicknames! I’ve told my whole family how I now have a fruitbat! They get such a kick out of it. Oh, Caira Sue eats like a queen, she does! To answer your question, we will be continuing the Gemzar inhalation study drug. We won’t be adding anything else to her on the chemo spectrum. She continues to eat the best of the best and get her supplements.
Eve and Romeo, you are right about Caira’s spirit! She is such an incredible creature. If she weren’t the best damn dog out there, it wouldn’t be so heart wrenching!
So we are doing the best we can with what we have. Living one day at a time, as Jerry told us to do! Lot’s of treatment of Caira’s spirit and soul. Which, of course, means swimming, running and chasing balls! Funny enough, somehow that treats our souls too, doesn’t it? I didn’t have my camera (can you believe it?!?) so these are just a couple shots from my phone. We went back to Sherman Isl. today to play on the beach. I thought it might be too chilly for a swim, but Caira did not! She was diving right in there! Now we have a very sandy, very happy dog. And no, Shelby, we never told her about the mets and have no intention of telling her!
Haven’t posted for awhile. I started a new job, and then went on a trip to visit my sister in Maine. My husband took Caira Sue for her 3 month check up this week. And well, she has a lung mets. One. I guess that’s all. Been trying to search the forums to determine how long each dog lived after being diagnosed with mets. Haven’t really found my answer. She seems fine. It’s me who’s crushed. yes, yes…I knew it was coming. Still not easy to hear.
Finding someplace to play isn’t always easy. We wanted water, we didn’t want to have to drive an hour. We needed someplace with easy access to water-we knew Caira would dive in whether it was safe or not. It’s hot. What do we do?
We go off the levee roads along the Delta and look for little corners of the world no one cares about. Or, almost no one. Seems there were plenty of fisherman along the rocks, but not when we got to the beach itself! Yay! Caira was in heaven. Adam finally got to see how good she can swim with her life jacket on.
Here’s some videos:
But boy was it hot. Adam fancies himself a little Bear Grylls. Sooooo, while I was playing with Caira he built us a little shade using the sheet from my car (so much for keeping sand off the seats!).
But hey! We all enjoyed the shade for a little bit today! Caira Sue for at least 3 minutes! It’s so hard to keep her down now…it’s hard to imagine her before the amputation. She really does seem younger now! Oh, and much more spoiled (sigh). What can you do? We love this girl.
Well, we met some awesome folks in Mill Valley this weekend. This includes 2-leggeds, 3-leggeds and a few 4-leggeds!
Cemil did a great job of greeting everyone, and drawing in folks to talk to us and learn about canine cancer. He’s such a star-everyone wants to get close to him. I think there were plenty of tripawd parents well-versed in canine cancer who were able to answer questions. I was happy to watch the dogs play!
Caira Sue got to get back together with her BFF, Codie Rae. They had an awesome time running, and chasing and swimming and running and chasing and running…..
I think Caira took one break the whole time we were there. Crazy girl.
It did all our hearts (human and canine) good to get together. Even though we see our own tripawd everyday, it’s still exciting to see others and hear their stories and see how awesome they are doing!
I’m going to try to link to shutterfly. There were just way too many good pix that day to pick one or two! If you were there, feel free to add to the slideshow.
A quick note to say that Caira Sue made some new friends in the last month. Wahoo!This was taken at Mill Valley Dog Park. Cemil is the big boy on the left (148 pounds!!!!) with a left front leg amputation. Caira Sue in the middle with a right front leg amputation and Codie Rae on the right with a right rear leg amputation. What a motley crew!
Caira Sue thought the mud puddles were fun. After everyone else had their fill of muddy glory, up walked Cemil and PLOP! In he went! Too cute!
A few weeks ago we went to Flagstaff and met up with an old friend, Janis. She had a new friend with her…Icy Toes! Yes, Codie Rae, you heard it…another girl dog with 2 names! Anyway, during an unfortunate day when Janis locked herself out and had turned to talk to the locksmith, Icy ran out in the road. She suffered some radial nerve damage and is waiting her 6-12 months for it to re-awaken. It hasn’t happened. Icy Toes says that seeing Caira Sue at 4 weeks post-amp has given her courage to face the odds that she may also be a tripawd soon. We enjoyed playing with Icy Toes, although Icy is quite protective of her toys! That’s ok, she’s used to having a whole basket of toys all to herself. It may take Caira Sue some time to convince her that communal living and playing is cool!
Anyway, we are looking forward to the Tripawds Party coming up this weekend!
Here’s a snap of Caira Sue and her new best friend of the day, Codie Rae. Caira Sue likes to run for the ball while being chased and Codie Rae likes to chase running dogs-it’s a match made in heaven!
Every week-twice a week we don masks and sit for an hour with a loud machine. Sounds nuts. Caira Sue is participating in a study for inhalation chemotherapy. So twice a week we put a see-thru plastic hood on her, we wear masks for our own safety-then we hook her up to a nebulizer to give her Gemzar through the tube in her mask. She’s an active girl, who doesn’t really like funny sounds. She doesn’t really like sitting there near the machine for an hour-but she does it because we are there doing it with her. This last treatment I sat with her and she rolled her eyes up at me and if she could talk she would have said “mom, this is ridiculous. You look ridiculous, I look ridiculous. Why are we doing this again?” Really. I know that’s what she was saying! I patted her and said “we are doing it for the salmon treats.”
Hello everyone! Back from our nearly 2 week adventure! We went to visit our friend in Kingman, then went camping in Zion and visited the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Caira Sue really enjoys a good view-of course what she REALLY likes is to RUN! And run, she did.
She got her feet wet in the river, but wouldn’t swim. Wouldn’t swim until an adorable 8 year old girl from Seattle named Sierra came around! It was an amazing experience. I had Caira Sue in her newly purchased ruff wear life jacket. She would go in up to her chest, but that was it-and I was OK with that. Mom’s a little nervous about her first swim post amp.
Sierra comes floating down the “rapids” in the middle of the river and all of a sudden Caira is off! Her instincts took off and she was right there in the middle of the river with the girl! She then swam to shore with Sierra and the 2 of them played for the next hour. This girl was wise beyond her years-she was so good with animals. Her mother told me she has trained many of their friend’s dogs-at the age of 8! Anyway, she had Caira Sue swimming across the river with her in no time, and the smiles were so worth it! I was glad to have the life jacket on though-there were a couple times where it seemed to really make a difference.
North Rim Grand Canyon. We had been to the south rim many times. The north rim was amazing!
Of course, there were those stinky signs that limited our viewpoints….
Our trip finished with a trip to see old friends in Flagstaff, AZ. Caira Sue was not a bit embarassed to see her old friends without her leg-she was ecstatic! Wahoo! What a great time!
Hello everyone! We spent the last 4 days in Kingman with one of our favorite people, Christine! Some of the time was pretty boring for a dog-you see Kingman is in the desert. And although Caira WANTED to go play outside all day long, she realized pretty quickly that the ground was not that friendly while the sun was up! She did make friends with Christine’s neighbor who played ball with her in the courtyard, though. She thought that ole man was pretty darn cool! He kept cheering her on and she was like “Ok! Throw it again!”
We took a trip up to Hualipai Mountain Park. OH MY GOODNESS! Caira Sue bounded out of the car and started running and jumping over boulders! I started shouting “wait! wait! you you are missing a leg!” and well….she didn’t care! She was all over those rocks, just like she had been before. Our little desert dog-our little mountain goat. Do mountain goats do as well on 3 legs? Hmmmm
Additional notes: I forgot to add two things.
A. We ordered the really cool web harness for this trip, but due to a flumox at fed-ex, we did not receive it in time.
B. Caira Sue used to go an hour playing in the rocks, and then hike a good many miles with us. This day she got a 15 minute “pass” from me and we took a leisurely 30 minute walk up the trail. I was wondering if anyone can comment on how far their hiking dogs can go and how long it takes to get to that point? Watching her for clues is pointless. This girl will play until her heart pops! I have just been limiting her, due to her being a new amp. I take her on lots of short walks, but don’t really know about the longer ones. Also, I don’t want to stress her joints too much. Any ideas, advice, stories would be greatly appreciated.
We went to Dillon beach today. Who can keep their girl away from the water after such an ordeal. Oh my! Did she have a blast! Only one episode where she dove a little hard on the right and squealed (heart pounding moment) on the water’s edge, but she brushed it off true Caira Sue style and after an enforced 5 minute break, was ready to dive in again!
Here’s a great shot of her leaping-3 weeks after surgery! Yay! I love the sand kick-up in the pix.
At one point we had 5 dogs on our blanket hanging out with Adam-talk about Dr. Doolittle! I was worried about how she would do socializing. I had honestly forgotten how deep her playful bark is! So, we had the same normal issues of “oh my! is your dog mad?” and “no-she’s having a grand time and trying to get your dog to chase her!” ha!
Of course it ended with a good pat down from her Poppa. We stopped in Petaluma on the way home to get a treat and something to give Caira Sue half a pain pill in on the way home (starting to look a little sore). But by the time we got home she was happier than ever. Now she’s sighing and sleeping next to me. We count today as a success!
I haven’t been on to post in awhile. It seems I’m having difficulty with the tripawds page. We all know Jerry is workin on this, so hopefully I will have a good solution soon.
Caira Sue has been doing really well. Her enlarged lymph node was a reactive hyperplasia from the surgery. Basically, not cancer. BIG sigh of relief!
The past 3 days she has been a hoot! She has more energy than she has had in 2 or 3 months. Yesterday she jumped up (paw on shoulder) and kissed Adam when he came home. He almost cried! He said he knows he’s not supposed to let her do it, but it’s one of those things he loves about her, and she hadn’t done it for a month before the surgery. Now here she is, greeting her Poppa again!Here’s a pix of her in her “swimsuit model” pose…
She’s our little go-getter. She was a star at the clinic, everyone came to greet her-whether they were prior friends or not. She was just glowing and I think everyone likes to see someone who is doing that well.
The behavioral issue (turning her head to the side) seems to be subsiding. The oncologist had never seen a dog do that before and told me to watch her. So that’s what we do! We watch.
She has had 2 chemo treatments now. She seems to be doing well. I think it makes her a little tired, so we did the 2nd one at night so she could “sleep it off” and it seemed to do the trick. Just a little fyi for any others thinking of doing inhalation chemo!
Next week Caira Sue is going to be adventure dog! We are going to go see Auntie Christine in Kingman, AZ and then off to camp in either southern Utah or Colorado-depending on a few factors. Either way, we are driving and we are camping! Wahoo! Get ready for cool pix.
But hey! We all enjoyed the shade for a little bit today! Caira Sue for at least 3 minutes! It’s so hard to keep her down now…it’s hard to imagine her before the amputation. She really does seem younger now! Oh, and much more spoiled (sigh). What can you do? We love this girl.
This was taken at Mill Valley Dog Park. Cemil is the big boy on the left (148 pounds!!!!) with a left front leg amputation. Caira Sue in the middle with a right front leg amputation and Codie Rae on the right with a right rear leg amputation. What a motley crew!
Anyway, we are looking forward to the Tripawds Party coming up this weekend!
Of course, there were those stinky signs that limited our viewpoints….
We went to Dillon beach today. Who can keep their girl away from the water after such an ordeal. Oh my! Did she have a blast! Only one episode where she dove a little hard on the right and squealed (heart pounding moment) on the water’s edge, but she brushed it off true Caira Sue style and after an enforced 5 minute break, was ready to dive in again!
