Month: May 2020

5/14/20 – Oakley’s First Chemo

Oakley just finished his first of six doses of chemotherapy in Pittsburgh!

Our plan is six doses of Carboplatin.  We are also looking at the added benefits a long-term NSAID and a drug like Auranofin could have.  Auranofin may not occur though due to its cost and unknown efficacy in greyhounds specifically.

We repeated chest x-rays and full bloodwork today and can happily report no signs of metastasis thus far after three weeks since diagnosis!  This was a slight relief as the biopsy of the removed leg showed extremely high levels of cell splitting pointing to something moving very aggressively.

He is home now and just ate a big dinner and is settling in for a nap.  Thus far no noticeable effects or nausea but I know we won’t see the true effects of that for a few days if it occurs.

We will continue to monitor him to make sure he continues feeling well. ❤️

5/11/20 – Oakley’s Post-Op CheckUp

Oakley’s post-op checkup went great today!  Staples were getting quite embedded due to how well he was healing so there a few raw spots now that they are removed.  The vet was very happy with how things looked and how he has been doing at home.

We will be taking him off all pain medicine starting today but will monitor to ensure we don’t notice him being in discomfort.  I had already backed down his Gabapentin a day ago due to his sleeping issues and he was more normal yesterday, so I think getting of these will be good for him.

The oncology report confirmed that the mass was osteosarcoma.  We didn’t expect otherwise, but it just validates everything we have done and will continue to do to give him the best life possible.  Our first oncology appointment and hopefully first chemo will be this Thursday.

Overall at this point we remain incredibly optimistic.  Oakley is happy and is cuter now as a tripawd then he was before. 🙂

5/7/20

Oakley is doing very well. We are still having little issues with him sleeping through the night and not waking us up multiple times trying to get comfortable, but we are hoping once he gets his staples out Monday, he will be able to lay on his other side which we know he wants to do. He is starting to be more himself-sometimes choosing laying on the floor despite his abundance of beds. We aren’t ready to work on steps yet, but he ran down the back steps last night before we could stop him and he ran up them today-all without issue. We are still going to carry him so we don’t chance him falling. He has an oncology appointment on Thursday in Pittsburgh. All things considered, he is not missing a beat as a tripawd. ❤️

Hey Everyone – Sorry for not updating the past few days… just enjoying time with Oakley and busy with some work stuff.

Oakley is still doing phenomenally post surgery. We are officially at 8 days now and I am seeing some of the bruising disappear.

Yesterday, we went for a short walk or “hop” down the block and he was smiling the whole time.

One question that I wanted to ask was when everyone saw their tripawd start to lay on the affected side again? Oakley definitely is getting tired of laying on his right side and is beginning to explore laying in his left. It’s been slowly progressing a little more each day but he still doesn’t tolerate it for long.

5/3/20: Didn’t have time to write an update today but wanted to share this one my wife wrote on Facebook…

”Paul, Odie, Oakley and I are grateful for how much time we have had together recently. It was a beautiful day and we spent time outside while Paul finally had the time to put together our new deck furniture we bought a month ago. Oakley got his last dose of tranexamic acid this morning and we are hoping one less medication will make him a little more himself (he still has to take his pain meds for a little longer). Overall, he is doing well and getting better every day on three legs. We just love seeing his beautiful smile. ❤️“