Month: March 2010

Holly’s back to her old self again!  We had some snow on Saturday – the peeps in the house woke up and said “yuck – more snow”.  Holly woke up and said “cool! more snow!”.  She went outside and made tons of snow angels in the yard – rolled all over the place. It was hilarious to watch her!

And the house is once again covered in her toys.  When we sit down and talk over dinner, she grabs a squeak toy and squeaks it – kind of like she’s joining in the discussion.  She’s once again living up to her nickname – Jolly Holly. Yay!

And thanks to Comet for Holly’s cool new banner for her blog – I hadn’t yet figured out how to do that and Comet came up with one for her!  So now she’s not so generic anymore. Thanks, Comet!

Holly won’t have chemo for 2 more weeks – her schedule would be for next week, but lucky for her (and us!) it’s her sister’s spring break so we’re going away.  Her next chemo will be 4/6.  We’ll see how she does with that before deciding to continue with more chemo.  Her vet thinks she should get 6 – he thinks she’s been doing well.  But he also knows he’s not seeing her day to day when it hits her.  So we’ll take this one day at a time.  Hey! We’re getting better at that all the time now! 🙂

Happy Spring!

Holly’s appetite’s been off since her 3rd round of chemo, but not as bad as after the 2nd round.  She had her follow up bloodwork done yesterday and today her results came back – wbc was 2800.  The vet said that’s a dip, but not terrible.  She wouldn’t eat breakfast today and threw up this morning… but is now eating dinner which is a good sign.  The vet put her back on the metoclopramide (anti-nausea), so that might be helping.  I’m struggling with whether to continue chemo… I hate seeing her uncomfortable for so long after it.  Our vet feels that she’s doing well enough that we should continue.  I think we’ll do round number 4 and see how she does with that.

Her energy has remained pretty strong, except for Saturday when we all wanted to nap.  But you’d never know her tummy was bothering her if you were to see her – she’s still getting excited by life, her tail is still up, she’s still giving lots of kisses.  So the outward signs continue to look awesome!  We’ll celebrate that life is good today – and it’s a sunny day at that!

I think we’ll take a nice walk after dinner… her favorite thing to do! 🙂  As Bob always says, we must feed her spirit!

Holly’s white blood cell counts were back up this week!  Yay!  They went up to over 7,000 so the vet and oncologist said she was ok to resume chemo.  So she had her 3rd chemo treatment today.  They cut the dose by 10% to be on the safe side.  And she’ll be getting Metoclopramide for the next few days to hopefully help with the nausea she experienced last time.  We’re keeping fingers and paws crossed that all goes well.  She’ll have her blood work checked again next week just to be sure, and if it’s too low they’ll start her on antibiotics.

Holly, of course, has been true to her name today – Jolly Holly.  She was so excited to go in to see her friends at the vets – of course to get the treats they all give her.  A treat to stay on the scale to be weighed.  (hey – I might not mind the scale so much if I got treats when I went to the doctor and had to be weighed!)  A treat from the vet tech who gives her chemo (who she adores!).  More treats from the ladies at the desk.  She was true to form and gave the vet tech kisses all the way through treatment.  And then barked at every dog we passed on our way home.

So… for now she’s doing great.  She even licked her bowl clean tonight!  And armed with some meds to counter the nausea, I’m optimistic that this round will go better than the last round. 🙂

Holly continues to let me know that she thinks she’s doing awesome.  That puts a big smile on my face… sometimes I have to remind myself that she doesn’t care that her white blood cell counts are low, or whatever!  Thanks for all the encouragement after my last post… it helps to have all of you here.  We’ll stay pawsitive for this week’s blood work, and hope for the best.

Anyway, when I started writing this (yesterday!) we were having the 4th really nice day here in Chicago.  We walked into town to mail some letters, and stopped at the little dog store (where Holly loves to stop since they have yummy grain free treats!).  Then we played in the backyard for awhile – Holly kept laying down in the snow and she looked so funny!

Needless to say, laying down in the snow would never sound appealing to me… but what do I know?  She was rolling around in it yesterday, and throwing herself all over it and basically being goofy.  It was hilarious!

Today is a rainy day, better for napping than taking a walk.

The squirrels have been really active in our yard.  It could have something to do with the sunflower seeds we put out for them so that Holly would have some entertainment as she looks out the doors.  🙂  She likes to watch the “nature channel” alot – and this way there’s something fun for her to watch.  But today even they’re taking a nap… think we’ll head back to the couch for a nap!

Holly:  boy, I thought she’d never walk away from that computer so I could let you all know how I’m really doing.  I’m doing great!  I just like to worry mom a little since it usually translates to more treats.  And that worked out for me big time last week!  I’m also learning that if I want a little more affection, then all I have to do is stay quiet for awhile and she’ll give me lots of attention.  Sometimes that’s hard with all the pesky squirrels in the backyard, though.  And my family is always going into the big, cold cheese box in the kitchen, so I usually have to go investigate who’s eating all my cheese!  So sometimes my plan goes a little haywire when I lose my head and jump up to investigate stuff.  But that also works out, since I usually get cheese when someone opens the big cheese box! 🙂  (that’s me when I’m eating cheese)

Holly was scheduled for her 3rd chemo treatment today.  We got a call from the vet this morning telling us her white blood cell counts were too low so we need to put it off for a week.  Her counts were 1073 – he said the low end of normal is 3000 and they want them to be at least 2000 before chemo.  So we’ll do another blood test on Monday and if all looks good then her 3rd chemo will be the next day.

The good news is that no one told Holly that something’s not quite right.  She ate breakfast and dinner with some enthusiasm today, and was good at performing her jobs around the house – she barked at the mailman, barked at a dog walking down the street, chased a squirrel out of the yard, and monitored cheese drawer activity.  We even played a rousing game of “where’s mommy?” (she gets some cheese everytime she finds me – no wonder she loves this game!)  She gave me lots of kisses, and her tail was at “full mast” most of the day – all good signs, I know.  I just hate it that this awful disease comes along and one little call makes you remember that all is not completely right inside even though all the external signs are awesome. Sigh.  So I enjoyed all the little kisses I got today, and she got some extra scratches behind her ears and extra treats.  With a 2 day celebration of her ampuversary and now another day of extra treats and scratches and rubs, I think she may think this is now the way to live her life!