so fresh and so clean

Bathtime!

long weekend

But not in a bad way! We travelled down to Longport to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family, where Dave got lots of well-wishes and even some prayers. Imagine that! He enjoyed his numerous walks with grammom, including a brief jaunt to the beach. The salt air seems to have a calming effect on him - his respiratory noises were barely noticable. The visits (maybe the car rides) always seem to leave him a bit tired, taking him a couple days to recover. Today he's taking advantage of the slightly warmer temperature... he almost caught a squirrel outside.

a good two months

It certainly has been an interesting couple of months. Initially, my emotions were all over the place: sadness that the cancer was back, anger at how quickly it came back, fear of what was to come, and, a recurring theme over the last ten months, guilt over all of these feelings about a dog. But the thing that this time has given me is the ability to accept all of them as much as I can and enjoy Dave as much as I can. Cliche, I know, but it's the truth.

I'm not living with a sick dog. He's actually better now than he was the last month or so of chemo. The fear mentioned above made me worry if I'd come home and find that he was sick, or that he wouldn't have the energy to be his normal crazy self. That hasn't been true so far.

I don't know what the next few months, or weeks, will bring. I'm excited about the possibility that it could be longer. As educated and wonderful as his doctor's are, they were shocked about how well he was doing. It doesn't seem like they've had a dog who went throught the vaccine trial and then took prednisone do this well. He's now lived longer than his initial prognosis, as well as the secondary prognosis after he came out of remission, which, for us, is a very, very good thing.

almost...

Saturday is Dave's two month mark. Two months from confirming that he's out of remission, and his prognosis at that time. Happily, tonight, he's fine and seems content to be sleeping on Mike's lap on the couch. Thanks to Toni and Andrew, who may be Dave's favorite couple (not related to us, of course), I'm sitting on the couch next to them on the new laptop! Dave was checking it out, too.

800 visitors!

Wow! I know that it's not 800 separate people, and many of them are me writing updates, but thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to come here and check up on Dave. Dave is fine, as happy as can be, and we are, too. Even the snoring at night has improved!! Anyone who knows me knows that if I can get a good night's sleep, I'm happy.

good Monday!

I dropped Dave off at Penn at 7:30 this morning, figuring I'd take a long lunch when he was done. However, about 20 minutes after arriving at work, his doctor called, saying he was ready to come home. Considering his stress level last time, I took an early, long lunch to go get him. We received good news: the cancer hasn't advanced as far as they can tell. His chest x-ray looked fine - all of the concerning spots are gone, confirming the pnuemonia diagnosis and no evidence of cancer. His doctor repeatedly said how great his lymph nodes felt and that they were "amazed" with the non-progression of his lymphoma. The best news: she said they think he'll have a few more months! Nothing is certain, of course, but considering the original out-of-remission prognosis, I'm very, very happy with that!

changed appointment

Midday Friday, one of the oncology nurses called to ask to change our appointment. Our Tuesday AM appointment was convenient - Mike and I are both off for Veteran's Day, and we were planning on heading to Center City to do some walking and window shopping. Tuesday is one of the chemo days in the department, and apparently they have several new patients scheduled as well. I asked if we could go in on Wednesday, as that's Mike's day off this week. No, they don't see patients Wednesday.

I'm dropping him off at 7:30 tomorrow, which I don't like because it means an hour and a half or so extra in his run that stresses him out. From University City, I'll go into work early and will ask my boss for a long lunch to pick him up later in the day, to try to reduce the potential stress time. Hopefully she understands...

Dave's regular breathing is a little heavier than normal today. That fall right in line with his last few appointments, and makes me worry what effect the stress will have tomorrow.

tgif

When I spoke with Dave's onocologist this week, we discussed his medication protocol. Due to the possibility of pneumonia, he'd been taking Clavamox, an antibiotic for the past six weeks. He received his last dose on Wednesday, and his breathing seems better. He's not snoring as much and his congestion sounds improved. This seems a little counterintuitive, but I'm happy with the outcome. The chest x-ray on Tuesday hopefully will shed some light about what's going on.

It's been beauty treatment week for him, too! He hates getting his nails cut, but they needed to be done. Today is bath day, which is another unpopular grooming ritual as far as Dave is concerned. I think some other animals have been in our backyard, which is great for Dave's curious nose, but bad when he decides to roll in the smell.

happy anniversary!

Mike and I have been married for two years, wow... We're happy to celebrate with Dave.

Since we reached the six week mark, I called his doctor today, and we're going to bring him in for a check up next week. We've been noticing a little more wheeziness, but he's active and alert. She was thrilled to hear that he's still doing well, and I'm sure all of the staff will be looking forward to listening to him bark in his run all day. :)

November

Happily, there's nothing new to report on Dave. He's destroying his toys, enjoying the nicer fall weather and had fun dressed up on Halloween. Most of the ten or so trick-or-treaters that came by loved his Busy Bee costume.

Today is six weeks out of remission, and Tuesday is another 'milestone' that he'll get to celebrate with us - our two year anniversary! He's excited.