Going Halflistic

...which is not the same as going ballistic... "Halflistic" is the word I made up for our new not-wholly-holistic approach with Abby. We are going to blend conventional/Western meds with some Eastern supplements. Yes, we are going East-meets-Westy on her. Here is my illustration of that:

East Meets Westie

[This is my first attempt at a "Brushes" sketch - Brushes being an app for my new iPad. I'm not very good at "painting" with my fingertip yet... as you can see, since that doesn't really look like a Westie at all, but it's an approximation of a Westie anyway...]

Sprinkling in some pouncing pics...

I discussed all this with Abby's oncologist, Dr. V. at the Vet Cancer Group yesterday. I told him about how I'd thought she was not doing well on the Palladia, which led to a bunch of panic-stricken research. He was very open to everything I brought up. Of course, he does think some folks out there are just trying to make a buck off your fear of the cancer in your dog, so he doesn't recommend trying just any old thing, but all the supplements I discussed with him he was OK with. He said if it were his dog, he'd have him on "everything but rollerskates" to try to make him better.

...to show she's her usual nutty self

We are going to start with upping her fish oil, since the Omega 3s are supposed to be very good for cancer patients. We'll be doing that slowly, since we don't want it to lead to GI troubles. After that, we are going to add in K9 Immunity, which some of the folks on the Tripawds site say they seemed to have good results with. It's made from mushrooms, which apparently turn your white blood cells into little cancer-cell-fighting Ninjas. (Sorry, I don't have an illustration for that. Maybe that will be my next Brushes sketch...)

Major Action-shot!

I won't go into all the details of the other stuff, unless we have some great success with things and folks want to know what we used. Hopefully... months and months - maybe even years - from now, we can share our secrets of success and Abby's longevity with folks. If anyone does want details of stuff now, just let me know. I could email you info. (Oh, and, at least for now, Abby is back on the Palladia and her stomach seems to be fine.)

In other photo-journalistic news, some of you will have seen this already on my Facebook page, but I captured a photo of the Rapture. (Luckily I captured it before the naked believers started getting sucked up in there...)

Cue the heavenly angels...

And I snitched this post-Rapture pic from here.

Apparently dogs are not part of the Rapture, which I think is ridiculous since they are probably the most Rapture-worthy creatures out there... Anyway, we have not been, nor will we be, raptured, so no worries about Abby being left behind to fend for herself. There are some very thoughtful Christian folk whose heathen friends will take care of your pets post-Rapture for the low low price of only $10. (And, what... I guess you must also need to send them a key to your house too...no? Or else how will they get in and get your dog? Plus a duplicate car key, just in case you are raptured right out of your sedan and Fido is left locked in the back seat...) If I see a bunch of dogs running loose, I plan to bring them home for a big party where we'll cook all the meat in the freezer and await the final apawcalypse.

Thanks for reading. Hope your day is rapturous. 

Chemo-Shmeemo

Abby continues to breeze through her chemo! Hoorah. She had her 2nd treatment on Tuesday and we've had no side effects (other than the popcorn not agreeing with her). This time we didn't even have to resort to feeding her plain pasta--she ate pretty normally at every meal. (Although she has not eaten a bowl of just plain ol' dry kibble-which used to be her standard diet-since her update-to-tripawd surgery on Oct. 29. She always gets a little extra somethin' in there now. With all the leftover turkey we've had, it's been easy to entice her to eat a bowl of half-kibble, half-turkey.)

Since she's doing so well, she'll go to an every-two-weeks schedule now, so her next treatment will be Dec. 14, which will likely be the halfway point. 

This time when I took her in, the oncologist said they would check her blood before administering the chemo. If things didn't look good (white cell count I guess) then they would have had to delay the chemo, but he said she was doing great. He also looked at her incision really well. She has this little nubbin (as I like to call it) now where they tied off the sutures on the inside. He said once the sutures are fully absorbed it will go away - which is good, because I'm constantly saying to her, "stop licking your nubbin!" It's already looking a lot better, and her hair continues to grow back so she's looking pretty great.

 Yesterday was her first visit to the dog park (just a regular dog park - as opposed to Fiesta Island, where there's the ocean and MUCH wider open spaces). There weren't too many other dogs. At first it was just Abby and her good friend Dakota, who you probably remember from their play date a while back. Then Pasha showed up. She had a great time! 

I finally got my camera back, as evidenced by the dog park photos. Posted below are a few belated photos of Abby and Leo at Thanksgiving. As you can see, they love each other:

Here they are kissing

Here they are hugging

Here they are begging.