I know it has been a looooooooonnnnnnggg time

[rustymaggie]

Well alot has happened since I last posted. The boys,Dozer and Tank, turned a year old on New Years Day, and they are as healthy as ever. Bubba is going great as well at 6 years old. Maggie turned 10 on April 2nd. The 2nd of July we noticed that Maggie had a knot on each side of her throat so on the 5th we took her straight to our vet. We had hoped it was not what it turned out to be though. He diagnosed her with Lymphoma. So we scheduled her an appointment with a wonderful vet hospital in Columbus, Ohio called MED VET. She went for her first appointment yesterday and they started her on chemotherapy. She has intermediate to high grade lymphoma. They did a FULL workup on her that lasted from 11:30 til after 6:00 P.M. needless to say she was worn out from all of this and slept very well last night. We had to wait til this afternoon to find out if she was what they called b cell or t cell lymphoma. Tcell is worse and harder to treat than b cell and according to the vets it has a lesser success rate. Well they called with the good news that she in fact is b cell lymphoma. So we are to bring her back to them this Friday and then once every three weeks for about 15 weeks total, along with a few blood tests in between.

The following is an explantion of the treatment plan we decided on.

Adriamycin and prednisone therapy: 

With this protocol dogs receive Adriamycin intravenously every 2-3 weeks for a total of 5 treatments.  Oral prednisone is given for the 1st month on a tapering schedule.  This is a “step down” protocol in which the most efficacious drug in the CHOP protocol (Adriamycin) is combined with prednisone.  Dogs are expected to be in remission at the time of the 3rd treatment with this protocol.  The median remission time with this protocol is ~ 7 months with ~ 10% of dogs being long term survivors.  The approximate cost of an Adriamycin chemotherapy protocol is $2300-$2700 depending on patient size, provided there are no significant side effects. This cost does not include the routine blood tests and initial visit of over $1200. 
 Since her first chemo treatment yesterday her swollen nodes have dramatically reduced in size and she has been alot more active today as well as having an increased appetite and better thirst for water. The hospital was very excited to hear that from us and are very hopefull that she will have a long term of remission due to how fast the drugs are working on her.
 Unfortuneately there was another form of treatment with a higher success rate but we were not able to afford it . It runs between $5000 and $7000. It is painful that we have had to put a "pricetag" on her health but we are very thankful that we are able to do what we are doing. So if all goes well they (and us) are hoping to keep her around for at least another year.. One of the plusses to this treatment plan is that we caught it as soon as we did. They said alot of people bring their pets in when it has progressed to the point of no return.
On the lighter side of all this, Maggie is happy because she gets to ride in the car for an hour and a half each way. All we can do is put our faith in the wonderful,caring hands of this hospital. This place is so nice. It has the atmosphere of a people hospital. It is very clean and as cheery as a place such as this can be. I know this is alot to read but I felt like I had to tell everyone here since Maggie grew up on this site. Between our health and everything else that goes on here from day to day I have not made the time to get on here and chat.
Right now she is snoring away on my pillow (her favorite spot in the house) waiting on her supper

Well I appologize for any spelling errors but I tired the spellcheck four times with no luck

[mtc]

Oh poor girl!!

[hoegaandit]

I am no expert, but note some success with NBD Peptide drug with lymphomas recently (in case this might be of any help) http://esciencenews.com/articles/2011/07/15/penn.vet.researchers.show.lymphoma.drug.shrinks.dog.tumors.could.lead.human.treatment

[winwinsmom]

Good to hear from you but am so sorry to hear about Maggie.  We need to start a prayer chain!  Our thoughts and prayers are with you 

[rustymaggie]

Well it appears that the chemo is working very well so far with Maggie. Her lymphnodes have gone back to normal size and she has perked up to being her normal self. Her doctor is very enthusiastic about the results so far and seems to think that this is an indication of a longer remission time than most. She is tolerating the medicines very well with no nausea or other side affects.

[winwinsmom]

That is wonderful news!  give her a big hug and kiss! 

[hoegaandit]

Excellent news!

[buddha]

I'm so sorry to hear about Maggie's diagnosis.  I'm very happy to hear that she is tolerating the treatment so well though.  I hope that she ends up in remission for a very long time.  Please keep us posted on how she's doing.   

[brumzoo]

i am sorry to hear about maggie's diagnosis but happy to hear that treatment is working  so well for her. 

[rustymaggie]

It has been about a week and a half since her final treatment. When she was discharged from MedVet they were very excited at how well she was doing. They said she is in a complete remission and they are optimistic for her to be in remission for a year or maybe more. She now needs to go once a month for three months to our regular vet for a checkup and then every three months from then on out to keep an eye on it reoccurring. Overall she did really well. Although the last treatment was a full dose of the chemo meds and she did not react very well to it. For a week or so after the treatment she had very bad fecal incontinence and did not eat very much for a week. Once her body passed the chemo and the toxins she bounced right back and his her normal self now. We are so very thankful for the treatment and staff at MedVet. It is a wonderful facility with a fantastic crew of experts on hand

[khybeemaow]

I haven't been here in forever either and was sad to hear that Maggie has lymphoma but really happy to hear that she is doing so well after chemo  I'm sending good vibes and healing thoughts

p.s. I hope all is well with you and Denise