This next section is a little journal I'm going to keep on the most horrible thing that I can imagine ever having to write about my 'Buddy' -  I can't believe this is actually happening to one of the best friends I've had in my life......



October 24, 2004

Today has been probably the worst day of my life.......I just received the most devistating news I could ever imagine about my best four-legged friend, my soulmate, the love of my life, my Buddy - my very first Aussie, was diagnosed with lymphosarcoma cancer :-(   I'm still in shock and can't seem to stop crying and being angry and sick all at the same time, and I honestly don't know how I'm going to get through this right now.

Time has been sneaking up on us at an alarming rate lately and I was just thinking the other day about how his 11th birthday is right around the corner on the 7th of November.......and where have the years gone?  Where did that bouncy little pup that used to have boundless energy to chase balls and frisbees go - and now just going up and down a few stairs to go out to the bathroom is a daily struggle?   I had been planning to do something special this year for his 11th birthday, knowing in my heart that it will be one of the last few we'd have together, and now today I find out that we'll be starting chemo and fighting for his life on that special day instead of celebrating.  Hopefully the treatment will work and we'll have a couple of more years together, but we'll now be taking it day by day instead of year by year.

I remember the day he was born, the day he came into my life, even though I wasn't supposed to have picked him as I had already picked out a black tri female (who was supposed to be for my husband), but for some reason this funny looking little merle pup, and boy to boot, somehow, someway, looked at me that day and chose me to take him home and into my heart.  Boy did he ever!  From day one he was mine, never giving much more than the time of day to my husband, and to this day is the same way.  He was and still is the orneriest, most stubborn, hard headed, smarter than he should be, kind of dog who for some reason does the most wrong but gets in the least amount of trouble, just because he's something special and definately knows it.  He's never wanted for a thing in his life, never had anything less than the best he could be given, and is the reason we started doing rescue for his breed, of which almost 300 to date have passed through our doors, so that they too would have a better life and a family who loves them just like he does.

We've got a tough, uphill battle coming up but one I'm definately willing to fight and plan on winning come hell or high water.  Life sometimes gives us more than we think we can handle, which is where I'm feeling I'm at right now, but I'm counting my blessings for what I do have and hope that everyone gives their four-legged friends an extra hug for me tonight in honor of my Buddy.

October 30, 2004

It's been almost a week now since I received the horrendous diagnosis of Buddy's lymphosarcoma and last Thursday we had our first appointment with the oncologist to begin chemotherapy and figure out how to fight this thing.  So far it's going okay, no serious side effects or anything thank goodness, and our next round is in 10 days which will hopefully go as well.  Each moment of my life is now filled with worry, dread, and feeling like I'm walking around in a daze, spending countless hours researching this on the internet trying to find out as much as can about what I can do to help him.  And the whole time I'm crying my eyes out and poor Buddy is wondering what's wrong with his momma, which makes me feel even worse.   It's almost so overwhelming and disheartening that there are times when I feel like just giving up and letting what will be happen.   I just can't do that even though I know in my heart that I'm going to run myself into the ground and go broke in the process trying everything that I can and the outcome will still be the same.  This damned thing is incurable and will sooner or later be what ends his life no matter what I do, but I've got to keep trying anything I can as it just might make a difference.  God this is just so unfair!

November 13, 2004

This has been a really rough week, as Buddy had a bad reaction to the 2nd round of chemo last Monday and it's been quite an ordeal getting him back on track :-(  He had the treatment Monday, did fine that night and the first part of Tuesday morning, but by mid-morning he started throwing up, having diarreah, and just very lethargic and sickly.   Called the oncologist and put him on some medication that night, but he wouldn't eat or drink that night, nor would he on Wednesday, so on Thursday we took him in to the oncologist to be put on IV fluids so he wouldn't competely dehydrate (and would hopefully start feeling better once he had something in him that couldn't be thrown up).  By Thursday afternoon he was feeling well enough to eat a few bites of food, but was still not feeling well so he went back in on Friday to be monitored.  He felt much better Friday night, thank goodness, ate a little bit more than he had on Thursday, and today he's eaten three times and seems to be feeling more himself, although still pretty weak and puny.

His blood counts look okay though and the lymph nodes have completely gone down, which is a good thing :-)........so even with this 'bump in the road' we feel he's doing pretty well and hopefully we won't have to go through this with every treatment.  I feel so sorry for him having to go through all this and it just breaks my heart seeing my once energetic, bouncy boy now struggling to walk just a few feet or go up/down a few stairs - but we're taking it a day at a time and getting through whatever hurdles we need to, and hoping and praying that all will turn out okay.

December 19, 2004

I've been a little remiss in writing these last few weeks, as Buddy had a horrible episode on 12/6 and we've been fighting to get him over it ever since.  If we never  have to go through that again, I'll be extremely grateful!   That Monday had been a week (to the day actually) of a chemo treatment (Vinblastine, which was an agent he hadn't had before, although he had had Vincristine before but we felt that's what was/is causing his hind end weakness - so we decided to try Vinblastine instead).....anyway, up until that Monday things were going fine but that night around 7:30pm he started having seizures :-(  We immediately rushed him to our normal vet (who is open until 9:00 thank god!) and by the time we got there he had about 6 seizures of around 30-45 seconds each.  I've never had a dog with seizures and was about the scariest thing I've *ever* gone through........mere words cannot even describe the absolute terror I felt  :-(   The vet stabilized him with phenobarbitol and his temp was about 104 so we started doing things to cool him down to a more normal range.  We then took him to the emergency vet to be kept overnight and monitored, and luckily he had no more seizures but his temperature was still high and he was extremely lethargic to the point of not being even able to sit, stand or even pick his head up, so they kept him on fluids and cool packs to bring his temp down.

I picked him up the next morning and brought him to the oncologist for an exam to hopefully figure out what was going on, and he then referred us to a neurologist for more extensive testing, etc.  He was sedated and given a CAT scan, a spinal tap, chest x-rays, along with a very thorough blood test, and about $3,000 later we could find no reason for the seizures or his high temperature - although it could have been worse and discovered the cancer had gone to his brain and what was causing them <sigh>.  He then stayed that night again at the emergency hospital to be monitored since he was still extremely lethargic and couldn't get up (let me tell you, 70 lbs of comatose dog weight is a lot to pick up in/out of a car 3-4 times a day!), and Wednesday we went back to the oncologist so he could review everything from the neurologist - and still we couldn't figure out what was going on.  The oncologist decided to switch his antibiotic to Baytril (in case of an infection that just wasn't showing up on the tests), and also back on high doses of prednisone.........and although he didn't come out and say it,  I could tell that he had basically thrown up his hands not knowing what to do for Buddy, so just told me to take him home, keep an eye on him and make him comfortable, and see how it turns out.  

I *definately* don't give up quite that easily and apparently neither does Buddy.......although we spent a few very rough days, between doing 24 hr a day 'seizure watch', temperature monitoring several times day, trying to get him to eat/drink something, etc.......and by Saturday he was feeling much, much better and has continued to improve every day since thank goodness.  This weekend he's even shown enough spunk to want to play ball when he was outside with us, which is kind of bittersweet in a way to watch my once 'play ball for 6 hours straight' dog now struggle to toddle a few feet to get it.  But at least he's still around to do even that much! :-)

Last week he was due for another round of chemo and we decided not do the scheduled agent (Adriamiacin) until he's a bit stronger, so we did a dose of CCNU and so far so good on that one.  We'll probably have to give the Adriamiacin a try when we go back next week so that we don't get too far behind on his chemo and give the cancer a chance to come back........so keep thinking good thoughts for us that everything goes well!

Here's a couple of pictures I got of him this weekend since the weather was pretty nice........








February 1, 2005

Back on October 24th, I had said that it was the worst day of my life when we got the news about Buddy having cancer.......I was so very wrong......tonight at 6:30pm we had to make the hardest decision of our life and say our final goodbye to my best Buddy.   Words cannot even begin to describe the horrible emptiness and sadness we're feeling.  After 11 yrs of being together day in and day out, and then every day of the last three months fighting for his life hoping we could beat this horrible disease that overtook my precious baby boy's body, we ultimately in the end lost the battle.  My only consolation is that now I can only hope that he's in peace somewhere playing ball and frisbee to his heart's content.  

Up until his treatment last Thursday, he was doing remarkably well, had no bad reactions to the treatments, was eating great (too great actually, he had gained 4 lbs in one week from mooching lunches from the guys at Brian's work <g>), and things were looking pretty good all things considered.  Then last week, after his treatment on Thursday, by Saturday morning was throwing up and not eating at all.  So I brought him in to the vet to get a shot for the nausea.

January 30, 2005 (3:00am)

Late Saturday night/early Sunday morning (about 3am), I woke up to him having violent diarreah and in shock, gums totally white and a temp of 105-106, so I rushed him to the emergency vet where they started him on IV fluids, glucose to get his blood sugar back up, and heavy doses of antibiotics.  His temperature went down a little and his glucose went up to a normal range throughout the day Sunday, but he was still in a critical condition that evening so he had to stay the night again until we could transfer him to his normal vet on Monday morning.  The ER vets didn't give us a very good prognosis, which had me totally freaking out, but since they didn't know my dog like I did I just knew we could get him over this and back on the road to recovery.

January 31, 2005

His glucose level looked okay this morning so they didn't add that to the IV bag all day Monday and his temperature was also staying well within normal, but anytime he drank anything he'd start throwing up, was still having bad diarreah, and was completely lethargic and extremely depressed.  I stayed with him all day, we took x-rays in the morning to see if there was anything abnormal that could be causing this, but other than a slight case of pneumonia (probably from aspirating a little when he threw up that morning) everything looked okay, so we did bloodwork and found his kidney values to be extremely bad.  So they added some potassium to his IV bag, which helped a little, but without being able to get any other nutrients it was like putting a bandaid on a huge wound.  We then took ultrasounds late that afternoon to look further into what could be causing this, and everything on there looked good too.  He was also interested in drinking a little water and was able to keep it down because of the anti-nausea mediation we'd been giving him all day, but he was still not interested in eating anything and was pretty lethargic.  He'd pick his head up to look at me or whoever came in to see him (and his two favorite techs came in to sing to him several times throughout the day, which he really liked and I thought was very special of them to do), but other than that he was pretty much out of it and not showing any signs of getting better.  So basically, the best diagnosis all his vets could come up with is a bad GI infection, possibly spread to his blood, and at the very worst he could have an insulinoma which could be so small that not even the ultrasound could detect it.

So once again he had to be transferred back to the ER to be monitored throughout the night, and he basically remained the same although showed a little more activity by wanting to roll over on his own or lay straight up instead of on his side.  Doesn't sound like much, but considering how he had been it really was somewhat of an improvement.

February 1, 2005

Since he still needed to stay on IV fluids and monitored closely, I brought him back to his regular clinic so they could monitor/treat him throughout the day.  I left him for a few hours in the good care of his techs, and early that afternoon they called and said he wasn't doing very well, his glucose level had dropped dramatically, and he seemed to be in pain, so we agreed to give him some pain medication and I'd be right there.  But by mid-afternoon when I got there he had started getting much worse as his glucose level again dropped even more, he now wouldn't even lick on the ice cubes they offered him, and worst of all he didn't even pick his head up to see me when I came in.

I spent some time with him in ICU, talking to him and crying my heart out over what I knew was the ultimate decision I had to make.  We moved him into an exam room where he and I could be alone, and for about 2 hrs in the darkened room I talked to him about everything and anything, all the good times we've had and all the places we've been together  - and more than anything telling him over and over again what a good, strong boy he was and how sorry I was that I couldn't make him better, that I loved him more than anything in the world, and that someday we'd be together again.  

People always say that you'll know when it's time to let them go, and while I knew physically it was time......even though throughout this whole ordeal all I kept thinking was that one more day might make a difference and he'll start to get better.......mentally and emotionally it's almost impossible to make that final decision, and I honestly hope I never have to do that again.

Buddy was my very first dog to get and my first dog to lose, which seems extremely unfair and makes it that much harder to let go - but he will always live on in my heart and in my memories.  I will cry over him for a long time, and will visit his grave every day for years to come.   I loved him more than I ever thought it was possible for someone to love a dog, and while some may not understand that kind of bond and unconditional love with an animal, I know that many do - so treasure every single moment you have with them while you can.

Rest in peace my baby boy - momma loves her Boo and someday we'll be together again......