Vodka can haz broccoli

Vodka’s adventures … and misadventures :)

Working that Palladia

About 8 months ago, Vodka’s pressing needs seemed to be ball-time, walks, hanging out with pals and yummy treats. And some of mine involved making sure he got all that
Things are somewhat different now. Weelllll, his needs are the same … mine, however, are a bit more heavyweight - exploring every option possible [...]

The dosage dance

Vodka had Palladia again today. In the last week without Palladia, the tumor in his shoulder has grown bigger. Really sucks Especially since the unpredictable food response continues:

He’s still picky - what works for one meal does not always work for another
He drank tons of water right after he gobbled up food yesterday AM [...]

One tumor becomes 2, and that seems to be a good thing!

So, the hyper-Vodka visited his pals at ACS today. Super-hyper-Vodka. So much so that Dr.Gillings rolled her eyes and asked “Does he *ever* take a break?!” Hmm … yesss, sometimes … like when he sleeps? Or when he’s chased the ball till he truly drops?
Anyway, she was pretty happy with his response to [...]

Normal is good

The Vodka had a CBC due this week. It’s been a couple of weeks since the last CCNU dose - we’ve been getting CBCs done 1-2 weeks after the oral chemo since it seems to affect his neutrophil count more than Vinblastine. This time around, it was all goodness.
I was paranoid enough to just get [...]

The waiting game

Ever since Vodka’s MCTs showed up again, we’ve been exploring a whole slew of alternative treatment options, none of which seem like the perfect solution. Then again, if we had a perfect solution, we would’ve used it already!
Since we haven’t been sold on any specific treatment protocol and he just had one more round of [...]

How long can steroids help?

When we found that a MCT had recurred on Vodka’s back, we quickly upped his Prednisone dose to 30 mg every AM (he had been scaled back to 20 mg every alternate day). Has it helped? I guess … the MCT has definitely not gotten bigger, in fact, it seems a bit smaller/less inflamed. But [...]

A mast cell tumor is back :(

Not good.
Am feeling pretty devastated right now, and it seems like writing about it is all I can do, so here I am.
I took Vodka to see Dr.Gillings at ACS today - he was supposed to have the second shot of Vinblastine in his last cycle of chemo. Instead, as I was sitting there with [...]

No news is good news :)

Wow! I can’t believe it has been a month since Vodka’s last post. Guess he (and his mum) have been crazy busy
The Vodka just finished a cycle of chemo last week - some side effects like nausea, some retching, thankfully nothing dramatic. After a bit of bartering with Dr.Gillings, we’ve decided that he’ll [...]

Vodka can haz melatonin

I’ve noticed that one of the side effects of the chemo + steroids + motley assortment of supplements that Vodka is on has caused him to be pretty hyper pretty late at night. Come 11 pm and he’s still bright-eyed and ready to chase his ball. Well, that’s all goodness in some ways, but doesn’t [...]