Vodka can haz broccoli

Vodka’s adventures … and misadventures :)

A not-so-great couple of days

It has been a really rough couple of days. The tumor in Vodka’s shoulder has been slowly getting bigger - even with the increased Palladia dose, it seems like we’re just seeing more side effects than effects. He’s been hit with really bad diarrhea, probably the worst so far
Plus, we saw a little [...]

Still fine tuning the dosage

These last few days, Vodka’s been handling the Palladia dose pretty well, but we haven’t been seeing the kind of response we’d like. The tumor seems to shrink the first day or two after the Palladia dose, but seems to get bigger by the third day The net result is that the tumor seems [...]

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 [...]

It fell off!!!

Remember the cutaneous tumor on Vodka’s back? The first one that came back in late January? The one that slowly grew in size over the last couple of months? The one that we shaved around so we could spray NasalCrom to reduce the histamine release? The one that I hated looking at (I hate all [...]

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 [...]

5 days in …

Vodka had his third dose of Palladia (a Phase III clinical trial drug) this morning. So far, other than one instance of soft stools, he hasn’t had any side effects. Plus, the drug seems to be working so far. The internal mass in the prescapular lymph region definitely feels smaller - how do we know? [...]

Day 1 of a clinical trial drug

Today, we started Vodka on a a drug that is in Phase III clinical trial. For those biochem geeks, this is a receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor that is targeted to act on the mutated c-kit of MCTs. Hmm … I hope I got that right. Basically, this class of targeted drugs are expected to inhibit [...]

Now, what on earth is that NasalCrom?

It seems like every few days, I stumble upon a different remedy that we can potentially use to control Vodka’s MCTs. Agreed, he’s doing good, being his usual energetic self, but I’m constantly in fear of tomorrow being different. Often, I spend hours researching a possible remedy, evaluating interactions with other drugs, side effects, etc. [...]

Surgery or not?

It has been almost 4 weeks since Vodka’s last chemo shot (Lomustine). We met Dr.Gillings (his oncologist) last tuesday and found that the internal mass in his shoulder had grown by almost 1 cm. Since then, it seems a bit smaller/softer at times, but there has been no significant change. We talked about various options [...]

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 [...]

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