As for Zo, we cherish her each and everyday, take her everywhere, spoil her rotten, take tons of pictures, hope for the best and fight her cancer everyday!  Miss Zo we love you!

Diary of Zoë's Treatments

September 13, 2006 - Zoë was diagnosed with lymphoma. Not sure how far along she is stage wise because we are still waiting for the biopsy of the lymph node behind her knee to come back. All her blood levels came back normal. As did her x-rays. Doesn’t seem to be in her lungs, but we will know more when she has an ultrasound done at the oncologist.

Signs that I noticed but didn’t put it together right away, hind sight is a beautiful thing. Her energy level had definitely decreased in the last 6 months but I attributed it to us moving to the city and to the fact that she is six-years old, so I expected her to slow a little. In August there was a lot of what my vet says to be bruising on her belly. She bruised to the touch as they were doing her biopsy so she asked about it. At first glance I figured it was a rash of some sort. Didn’t seem to bother her and eventually went away so I wasn’t overly concerned.  It didn’t really come together until Zoë accidentally got hit with a baseball when we were all playing. The whole right side of her face swelled from her eye to her chest. We took x-rays and it was not fractured, that was the end of August and she still hadn’t healed. The liquid just seems to fall from her eye to her neck to her chest and so on. Her lymph nodes swelled incredibly, if not bigger than golf balls -- and I am not exaggerating. They seemed to decrease in size over a two-week time period but that is when I took her in. I was told that it probably was not lymphoma because she seems very healthy and it was too coincidental to her accident. So they sent me off to watch her and her swollen nodes. I allowed another 2 weeks to go by and they were all now swollen as was her eye area. Nothing seemed to be healing. I called a different vet and went in the next day when they took a biopsy of her lymph node behind her knee. The lymph node, my vet said, was purple in color so she expected lymphoma. And now we are waiting for the results. Her eye again is very swollen. The sutures on the other hand don’t seem to be healing well after 4 days. But we are keeping a very close eye on her.  The entire time she has been eating and drinking normally and would love to play if her leg did not bother her. We are hoping to get to the oncologist very soon as we are going try chemo. She is already and has been on a raw food diet plus supplements for over a year. So now we wait…

September 13, 2006 - Today is the first appointment at  the New England Veterinary Oncology Group in Waltham, Massachusetts. After discussing our options we decided to move ahead with Zoë’s Chemotherapy treatments. They first completed all necessary blood work and the bone marrow test which all came back normal.  The oncologist decided to treat Zoë with an 18-week protocol. Today she received vincristine and aspargine. They held off on the prednisone because she was still healing from her biopsy and they didn’t want to disrupt her healing process. I sat in  as they administered her chemotherapy. We have also began using lavender oil on her sutures. It has  worked great!  I hear some dogs really have an aversion to the scent but where it was on the back end she did great! She is healing well and it keeps her from licking the area. I would have paid a hundred dollars and it cost me eight dollars. Best eight bucks ever spent.

September 23, 2006 - We made it through the first round of treatment with no complications and the swelling of her lymph nodes has almost gone away. We started at the size of golf balls and we are at the size of small grapes. We will be going in for treatment every Tue. For the next 3 weeks. Then we will continue to go every two weeks for 14 weeks than once a month for check ups for the rest of her life. After reading everything I can find and talking with the oncologist I have decided to keep Zoë on her regular supplements and diet. There seems to be controversy in this area…She is on a raw food diet that consists of raw chicken, meats, fish, and certain veggies, vitamin C 2000 mg, e 800, EFA’s , flaxseed oil 2 tablespoons per day, glucosamine and chondriton, cottage cheese, maitake mushroom liquid, glutamine, lysine, and shark cartilage. No carbs -- nothing with white flour and no fruits. Almost like an atkins diet. So far so good. I am stopping her supplements 2 days before treatment and 2 days after. You would have no idea she was having issues. The last 2 days she is very normally personality wise and play wide. She is eating great. I have begun to give her 3 smaller meals a day hoping to help with her energy level . She is weighing in at 78 pounds, 2 weeks ago she was 85 pounds. Every thing else is normal as far as I can tell. We are all anxious for her sutures to be removed to get back to normal activities. The Dr. and techs have been great. They have called a couple of times to check on her progress. We go again Tuesday for our second treatment.

September 26, 2006 - Zo went in for her second round of chemo today which was cytoxan pills 5 @ 50 mg, 1 @ 25 mg. She is also to get 2, 50 mg lasix today and 2 tomorrow. She is going to the bathroom a lot and drinking tons. Weighing in at 78 pounds, which is the same as last visit. She was also able to get her sutures out and she is healing great. She has been very active the last few days, which has been nice to see. So far the side effects to the chemo have been minimal.

October 3, 2006 - Today was Zoë’s 3^rd treatment. She received a higher dose of the Vincristine. Yesterday, we had a great day. Mark, Kade and I went to the park to throw a Frisbee and she was running around the entire time. She has been having really great days. She is maintaining her weight of 78 pounds. I expect by Thursday/Friday, since she receives treatment on Tuesday, that she will become lethargic. She has not yet reached remission but we are very close. You can barely feel any of her lymph nodes.  So far she has responded very well and gives here technicians at NEVOG a run for their money come treatment time. Her activity level has increased -- she is able to comfortably walk about a mile. Her stamina is not where it used to be but I don’t like to over do it either. Other than that all is well.

October 10, 2006 - Today was Zoë’s last of her weekly treatments. She will now receive chemo every 2 weeks and in-between those visits we go to her regular vet because she needs to have blood work done every week they also keep track of her weight. Today she is weighing in at 79 pounds. She received a drug called adriamycin.  She had to lay still for 15 minutes. They tried 2xs to get her needle in but between the tech who was not her normal tech not being very good at it and Zoë screaming they had to take the treatment out back where they could better restrain her. All her blood work is still very normal.  Today was the first day Dr. Philibert suggested she was in remission. He felt that by the second treatment she was very much on her way. He stated that he wished all his clients could take to the treatments as well as she has. It was very comforting to hear because I am not sure what to expect. She is feeling great, more playful in the last 2 weeks than she was for the last 6 months. She has not had any major side effect. She tends to tire quickly but we do what she can handle. Still eats like a champ!

October 16, 2006 - We went to the regular vet to day for her blood work (cbcs). She is weighing in at 77.5 pounds but I think between the 2 scales at her regular vet and the oncology place we are getting different readings. She had a great week; we even took her to the beach.  Even though she was wiped out when we got home we all had a great time!  This is the first week we don’t receive treatments. So I am anxious to see how she does. She had been handling all the poking and prodding very well!  My vet receives weekly emails from my oncologist so her regular vet was excited to see us and happy to hear how well she has been and is doing.

October 26, 2006 - Zoë and I headed back to NEVOG today. She did very well these past 2 weeks. Almost playing too much. She is now weighing in at 79.6, which is consistent with her other weigh ins at NEVOG. Today she again received Vincristine, and tomorrow will get cytoxin with lasix given at home. The Dr. says all her counts look great and seems like she is feeling great bc she is so fiesty during her treatments. They seem very happy with all her progress. Her oncologist said that he wished all his patients reacted as well as she is.  That was comforting to hear.

November 7, 2006 - Weighing in at 80.10. She is maintaining very well. She feels a little thin , a little bonier than I would like, but they tell me not to worry. She is eating 3xs a day. I may increase the portions and or proteins a bit. She is VERY energetic. Her oncologist seems to thinks the cancer has been eliminated thus far and is feeling better than ever. Her energy kicks in the week after her treatments. Today she had adriamycin, She had to stay still for 20 minutes because if administered to quickly she will vomit. She did great. No problems.

November 14, 2006 - Zo went into our regular today for her cbc’s (complete blood work). NEVOG is an hour and 20 minutes from home so we go to the regular vet on weeks she does not receive treatments because it is closer. Today she was running around in circles playing with the technician. It is nice that she is still happy to see all her techs and Drs. she literally pulls into the oncolgy place because the give her lots of cookies.  The only problem this week was that she vomited three times Friday night between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. Seemed fine attitude wise, but was fine there after.  She has 7 treatments left.

Zo went into Dr. Cafferella today for her cbc’s (complete blood work). She was running around in circles playing with the technician. The only problem this week was that  she vomited three times Friday night between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. Seemed fine attitude wise, but was fine there after. She has 7 treatments left.

November 19, 2006 - Zoë received Vincristine today and will get the cytoxin with lasix at home on Wednesday she lost 3pounds this past week which was my fault she didn’t get lunch everyday which seem to help maintain her weight.  Still seems better than I could have ever expected.

November 28, 2006 - We went to our local vet for CBCs once again.  However this time her counts came back lower than any other time her blood work was done.  Her technician from NEVOG called and it was decided that her counts were lower than they would have liked so as a preventive measure they put her on Baytral for 5 days.  Baytral is just a broad spectrum antibiotic. They are trying to protect her from infections.  She was a little off the past couple of days more cranky than anything.  It seems as though she isolates her self a bit the days when she is not feeling up to snuff.  But being 3 days before her next treatment she seems to be recovering well. Mind you her appetite has not skipped a beat. As the end of her treatments approach I now tend to worry about how she will be off her treatments. Its funny in the beginning I was scared of her treatments now I am scared of her treatments ending. They tell me she is doing so well and to not worry but I worry every day!

December 5, 2006 - We were very concerned Zoë’s counts would be too low and we would have to skip a treatment but luckily they came back up and we were able to treat her. She received her long treatment of adriamycin. She was great, it is tough to lay still for as long as is necessary but she did fantastic. Her weight is back up to 78 pounds. She had lost a couple of pounds because I decided to cut back her lunches but since she dropped an immediate 5 pounds we are back on lunches.  She is doing better than anyone would have ever imagined and people are often in disbelief that she has cancer. But we still cherish every day.

December 19, 2006 - She is maintaining her weight of 78pounds. Her oncologist says she is doing well.  And we are all thankful she will be enjoying the holidays with us. Her CBCs came in very well the best test yet they tell me.  Today she had Vincrisitne and in a week she will get the Cytoxin and Lasix. We are waiting a week on that because the last time her white cell count went pretty low so we are trying to avoid that happening again.  She will also skip out on her trip to the local vet this week because we are treating her weekly for this treatment.  All is still well.  We have 2 treatments left.