Lylee Girl – Our Best Girl Ever!

Photo: Lylee with her awesome surgeon Auntie Lisa (Alexander)

Abby’s Mom came up with this great title for us Tripawd girls – “Tripawd Warrior Princess”.  And it’s true! We are incredible super powered girls that amaze our family and friends with out love, spirit and tenacity. We even have special pink capes to fly with!

I’m happy to say that I’m half way through my chemotherapy. This next time they will do lung x-rays to check that everything is well. Then if so they will continue with the next three treatments. I do have rather low energy for a week or so after the treatment but then I feel all better again and life is good!

In fact life is so good I’ve put a little more weight on from my Mum giving me all my favourite treats and extra good food plus she started do home cooking for me. Now I really know that she really must love me as cooking is definitely not her thing to do, but I say bring on the beef stew! Yum!!

She’s not too worried by the extra weight gain as it’s easy for me to keep my athletic form. And hopping does give me a good workout 😉

Really looking forward to the next NorCal Tripawd Pawty! Only a few days to go now – Woo Hoo!!

Keep on waggin’ and lovin’

Lylee Girl

xoxoxo

Tripawd Girl Power Forever!!!

(Thanks Abby’s Mom for a great picture!!!)

Me with Tani and Obie’s Mom receiving all-I-can-get-scratches (Mt Tam in the background!)

Shelby and her Mom (her Mom gives the best scratches and lovin’ too 🙂

Me and Shelby’s Dad 🙂

Obie and his Mom

Shelby sharing her Mom with me

The best dog park!

Shelby and her Dad

Okay, next pawty September 10th –

I sez: Be there or be square!!!

Lylee Girl

xoxoxo

Photo: Ah – life is so hard; these beach walks should happen everyday.

So the scare about a possible cancerous lymph node in our Lylee Girl is over. Just a reactive one that is enlarged and left over from the surgery. We will keep an eye on it and hope it resumes it’s normal size soon.

So today we went back to see the nice oncologist to have her CBC done to check her white blood cell count. Luckily it had gone up into the 5000’s up from the 3ooo’s (low normal) so we went ahead and gave her, her second dose of chemotherapy,  Carboplatin.

We have Cerenia, an anti nausea drug to give her as well as Clavamox to start in a week as a prophylactic antibiotic in case her white count drops really low and then is at risk of infection, possibly sepsis. This drug will protect her from most bacteria.

So fingers or rather paws crossed that things will go as uneventfully as the last chemo episode.

Huggs and wags to all,

Lylee’s Mum

xoxoxo

Going where no Tripawd has gone before…

to seek out evil seaweed and save the world…….

It was a difficult task but perseverance and dedication paid off……

…..mission accomplished! Lylee saved the world!! YAY!!

(that is until we come to the beach again 😉

Photo: Cancer-schmancer boo to you – I’m a ‘Beach Girl’ and I’ll roll in the sand as much as I like 🙂

Beach Day yesterday. Lylee was given free rein or rather leash and girl ‘o girl did she live it up. There was no stopping her. In the water again and again, rolling and rolling and most importantly saving us from evil seaweed.

Regarding the lymph node I’ll copy what I wrote in the Tripawd Discussion Forum for all the friends and family who don’t follow the discussion forums, so this sums up today’s events:

Photo: I’m on the bed having a nap and, yes, that is Princess Arabella Monkeycat is in the corner.

Well, Actually it’s my Mum that’s the Newbie! I’m fine – what’s the worry. So what that I get a bit out of breath on walks. I’m still me and life if great 🙂

Mum’s like, oh, why is she looking like that? Well I’m just sniffing the ground on a walk and we tripawds need to position ourselves with our legs in a certain way so we can get down close to the ground. So, no, I’m not just about to collapse just sniffin’!! My poor Mum, she’s ready to catch me at any moment.

Well, it was true I did fall a while ago, but it wasn’t my fault! It was the resident monkeybutt!! Happy Harry the Squirt! He is a squirt, all 13 lbs of him and he ran underneath me and ouch he tripped me up. Monkeybutts are pain in, yep, you got it, the butt, big time! Now my Mum is super careful with ‘monkeybutt squirto’. She blamed herself and was very sad. She cried even thou’ she tried to hide it from me. But I told her it was okay and not her fault. Even so she still blames herself. Ah, skin pawrents – what to do!

Anyway, Life is good and I’m getting very yummy food and treats and went to the toy store today and chose my own toy. It was a fun time! I was smiling a lot 🙂 And we’re going to the beach again tomorrow – yippee!

Wags and kisses to you all,

Lylee Girl

xoxoxo

Photo: I’ves sand on my nose and I’s very ‘appy!

My Mum and Dad took me to the beach yesterday – day 23 from my surgery. They said it would be good therapy for me. And you betcha it was! I got my toes wet in the sea and let my fur down in the wind and and a hoppin’ good time.

Below is a video of me doing my beach thing – ooh, it felt good 🙂

I just started digging with my front unipaw all by myself, it just ‘appened! Works great too. And then the rollin’ just followed, like, naturally. My Mum sounds rather crazy on the video, but I think that was just because she was ‘appy to see me getting back to my old self (We furkids have to forgive our skin-pawrents for lots of things ;))

She kept the leash on – not sure why ‘cos I usually go free, I always like to stay close-ish to her. I thing she is still a bit protective of me – that’s okay – she loves me lots.

Photo: “But why can’t I come in the house?”

It’s done. The first chemo treatment yesterday.

And let me tell you, we were such worry warts! The oncologist was really kind, patient and answered all our many questions – again. Then they took her off for the deed. They seemed to be taking a long time and I saw myself rushing into the back rescuing my girl from the poison being injected into her bloodstream, er, okay, the healing elixir coursing through her body dissolving all the naughty cells that are having a non-stop party and now really need to go bye, bye.

So, the extra time they took was to remove her sutures – almost sixty of them. They were not doing CPR on her or any other horrible thing. I took some fresh chicken in a baggie for her but they said she refused to eat it until the whole ordeal was over – poor girlie.

Anyway, she is doing okay today; her tails is wagging, always a good sign with her. We have antibiotics to start in seven days in case her white blood count drops too low and then she is at risk of infection. We also have some anti nausea medication if she gets nauseated. She is off her food tonight so we will see how she is in the morning.

And we will take her in for a recheck of her white blood count in a week.

Also continuing the natural supplements. Interesting research out there regarding Carboplatin (her chemo ‘special’ agent) and Curcumin (one of them that she is getting):

Anti-angiogenic effect of resveratrol or curcumin … [Eur J Pharmacol. 2011] – PubMed result

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21114990

Enough for now, I’m off to bed – sleep tight 🙂

xoxoxo

Photo: Grammys’ are always good to lean on 🙂

So we have our girlie on a ‘super duper diet’. Extra yummy!

So we are trying to follow the high protein/no grain idea.

She already ate a high protein/no grain kibble supplemented with a freeze dried food that you mix up with water everyday called Grandma Lucy’s ( grandmalucys.com ).

Now we have added to this Honest Kitchen’s Embark which is a dehydrated food that one also mixes with water to reconstitute. (honestkitchen.com)

And then to finish it all off with a special topping of Evo 95% meat canned food. (evopet.com)

So this is the base mixture I create twice a day which is seriously tempting, both to give her a good nutritious meal but also to disguise all the great but not so tasty supplements! We decided to throw everything we got at these cells definitely ‘behaving badly’.

I researched tons of literature on many health immune enhancing products aimed at supporting the body in fighting off cancer, let me tell you – there are lots and lots 😉 So it came down a lot to a gut or intuitive feel as there are so many potentially wonderful things to take. The Tripawd website was especially helpful – thank you Tripawd genius’s.

So this is a list of stuff she is taking right now:

Vitamineral Green  and Earth from “Healthforce Nutritionals” I have to put these in capsules as it has a strong green flavour but the Earth is ok in the fud.

Berry Green from New Chapter. Tastes not too bad so into the mix it goes.

Zyflamend; Gingerforce ; Daily Ginger: all from New Chapter.  Zyflamend is a truly potent combo of ten herbs. Ginger is meant to potentiate the chemo and is a good anti nausea agent.

Mushrooms. Yeah baby ~ Lylee is happy. Nah – sorry. Just the regular non-psychedelic medicinal ones from NSI Vitacost.

Fish oil for the omega 3’s. She has 4 grams a day to start.

Multi vitamin, vitamin C + E, (zinc occasionally).

Primadophilus – a probiotic + saccharomyces boulardii ,occasionally, also a probiotic.

Curamed (Terry’s Naturals) Curcumin extract + extra tumeric.

Transfer Factor from Source Naturals.

Artemisinin a la cream cheese – at least 2 hours after dinner. (Doctor’s Best brand)

Lamb treats, fresh chicken treats, roast beef & chicken, liver treats……. I mean, what meat treats hasn’t she had 😉

I will also add Pycnogenal when it comes in the mail and maybe AHCC which is supposed to be an incredible immune enhancer from Japan but I’m still researching it.

Oh, and her usual Glucosamine, chondrotin and MSM.

Rescue remedy when needed in her H2O.

And how is she doing with all this fab stuff being integrated into her system. Well, she seems great on it. No runny poo (always a good indicator ;)) and her energy seems to be coming back nicely from the operation.

We also do energy work (Donna Eden inspired) and lots of massages.

Now all I have to do is decide if we should commence with chemo tomorrow. Ahh! I only want the best for her. If only my crystal ball wasn’t on the blink – they don’t make them like they used to.

Stay tuned.

Keep up the good & loving thoughts and prayers.

xoxoxo

(And, yes, if we do chemo I told her oncologist I was doing lots of supplements and she was fine with it.)

Interesting stuff! http://pinestreetfoundation.org/2009/05/12/lymphoma-chemotherapy-antioxidants/
And this: http://pinestreetfoundation.org/2008/03/20/lung-cancer-chemotherapy-antioxidants/
(Some say yes and some no to antioxidants and chemo)

Photo: Our Lylee with her very sweet oncologist, Dr Holly Burr

Lylee Girl says she has had enough Dr visits to last 10 life times. She is such a brave girlie! And super sweet to everyone she interacts with. People always comment what a good girl she is.

Yesterday we went in for her abdominal ultrasound, chest x rays, blood workup and urinalysis. This is all done before starting chemo to check things are looking good and no masses or weird stuff going on. She got to wear her new special doggie rubber balloons (Pawz) on her feet to help with her traction on the slippery floors. “Whatever my mother wants!” she sez! Such a good sport! We also took her bed (no. 5) so she always had something soft to lie on.

I’m happy to say that the ultrasound only showed normal signs of aging for an older doggie. “Unremarkable” as the medical community say – that’s when you like to be “unremarkable” 😉

The prelim on the chest x ray was good except for a small area but might just be where bone and cartilage meet – so the radiologist will look at it too.

We haven’t got the bloodwork or urine back yet. They want to get a baseline again on her liver and kidney function and CBC. And to check her urine is concentrating well as the chemo agent we are using, Carboplatin, is excreted almost unchanged.

So, if the results come back okay the plan is to start her chemotherapy in a few days and do six treatments every three weeks depending on how she responds to it. We will be watching her white blood cell count closely as this can drop very low. And of course how she is generally doing with it (sometimes nausea, etc.) The dose they use for dogs is much lower than they use with humans so the side effects are much less and we are truly concentrating on quality of life rather than quantity of life. We will let Lylee let us know how she wants to proceed – it’s all about Lylee Girl and her true well being and comfort.

Lylee really is the Best Girl!

Huggs to all, xoxoxo