Friday, October 12, 2007

Chemotherapy

We have decided to start Perry on Chemotherapy.

The way he will respond to this treatment remains to be seen.
He had his first injection today, Elspar (L'asparaginase), he did well and we should not see any type of side effect with this drug.
He is also on prednisone therapy, and will still be taking his metronidazole to treat his diarrhea.

We are starting this with the knowledge that he may be on this treatment for the rest of his life. If this treatment does not seem to be working after 3 weeks, we will stop and just try to keep him comfortable until his quality of life suffers.

The oncologist gave the treatment 30-40% that the cancer will go into remission for 8 - 12 months. We should see signs that it is working within 2 or 3 weeks, if it is working, we will continue, if not we won't.
Simple as that.

Perry may look skinny, but he is super strong and playful. He is not acting sick except for the weight loss and diarrhea. These were strong factors in our final decision. He has very good quality of life at the moment, so if we can keep that going, I think it is worth it.

We will be tightening our pursestrings as this is very expensive, we have already spent $2000 on diagnosing this ($700 at the vet over the last month, $1300 at the hospital), and we spent another $300 today for his first treatment. Subsequent treatments will be between $200-300.

Let's hope it works!

2 comments:

Suzanne said...

i'm keeping my fingers crossed! :)

nancyrosetta said...

Thank you so much Suzanne,

Perry appreciates it!

He was asking when he could let Raven bother him again. I laughed so hard. He is a funny dog.