Chemo for puppy

We made an appointment for Miss Ginger to go see her oncologist because she has been doing so poorly. You can tell just by looking at her that she feels awful.
And since she hasn’t been eating, we’ve really been worried about her. So we were hoping that her doctor could shed some light on this and hopefully get her feeling better.
Last night we actually got her to eat an entire chicken breast. Of course I fed eat bite to her, but she ate!! All of it. And this morning for breakfast she ate about a cup of doggie lamb stew. YAY!!
This morning as we were preparing to go to the oncologist she seemed perkier than she has in quite some time. We could see our sweet Ginger returning to us.

Is this not the face of a bored kid??!!! It is quit a long drive! I feel the same way Ginger.
As you can see she’s starting to get back to her old self. She’s looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. That mass on her eye that we were to have surgery to remove…….well, it bled a little bit then it dried up and fell off. Both our regular vet and her oncologist were a bit perplexed by it. But Ginger’s not complaining because she won’t have to wear that stupid collar for 2 weeks straight!
The mural in the parking lot of the animal cancer center. The doctor and her staff her are amazing! We love the care and affection they show Ginger! We’ve been so blessed to have such a quality facility within a short distance.
The drive home is filled with some familiar landmarks of the area. I managed to take  this photo from the highway on the drive back.
It’s such a pretty area….it’s a shame that the gray dreariness is always hanging around.
So her oncologist explained that the vomiting and the lack of desire to eat could be due to the new chemotherapy, the antibiotics or even pancreatitis. If it’s pancreatitis since she is beginning to eat again that’s a sign that she’s on the mend. If it’s a reaction to either the new chemo or antibiotics we won’t know until we give them to her again. Well, we don’t have any intention of giving her the antibiotics again. She was on them because she had scratched her itchy belly and given herself an infection. That has resolved so she has no need to continue the antibiotics. She will need another couple of doses of the new chemo drug. The goal with the new chemo drug is to give bone marrow a break in order to recover and get her platelet count up. Once that has occurred she will be able to return to previous chemo treatment which worked very well for her. Her doctor also reminded us that we are in great shape overall. When we came to see her for the first time 15 months ago the prognosis that we were given was 3-6 months which is typical for dogs with lymphoma. We would be lucky to make it to a year. Well, here it is 15 months later and other than this latest setback she has done beautifully on chemo and her quality of life hasn’t suffered in the least. Actually it’s improved because she was given her night peanut butter treat containing her chemo pills. I don’t know many dogs that get the pleasure of getting peanut butter on a daily basis. So now that she seems to be on the mend we can breathe a sigh of relief and get back to the task of preparing for our impending move.