First Post

Hello!

We have learned that the resident blond goofball (to distinguish from the rest of us goofballs) has cutaneous malignant epitheliotropic lymphoma.

On August 27th, Mike and I found an ulcerated lesion on her neck (hidden under her collar), she went to the vet on August 28th (we found another small lump on the other side of her neck) and we treated the lesion as an infection for five days (it was responding). The morning that we were to return to the vet for a recheck, I found two additional "lumps" and they were starting to look angry. They were red and all about the size of a pencil eraser, except for the ulcerated lesion on her neck which looked like a slice of pepperoni stuck to her neck. We decided to take them all off, as well as a bump on the top of her head that had been there for a year or so. So now Abby has staples. Lots of staples. She was to remain quiet and not run or jump or play or anything until the staples were removed. Hah! Fat chance of that. We tried, but she removed a staple on the first day, so now Abby wears a T-shirt and scarf 24/7 to keep her from picking, licking, scratching or otherwise disrupting her healing. Oh, by the way, we went on vacation to my parents' house in New York three days after her surgery - where she normally runs in the woods and generally raises havoc. Havoc was minimized by keeping her on leash, but she still managed to eat an entire ear of corn (scaring the bejesus out of us, requiring induced vomiting - of Abby, not us) and tracking a bear (we think, based on the "evidence" left "behind" by the tracked animal).

On Friday, September 11th, we received the news of the diagnosis, on September 14th, we visited the oncologist (Dr. Boria, VERY nice man) and today, September 15th we start chemotherapy and have Abby's staples removed. Dr. Boria has recommended five sessions of lomustine at three week intervals, so we're going to do that in addition to switching Her Highness to a high protein, high fat, low carb diet (no more pizza bones, Abby) and adding in some highly recommended immunity boosters (K9 Immunity, Transfer Factor, and fish oil for Omega 3's and 6's).

Drum roll, please..... We have decided to start...a blog... (several people who know me, just fainted, I'm sure) to share the lessons we're learning from Abby and keep everyone up on her progress. Please forgive a first time blogger's mistakes (I hate the word blogger) and feel free to offer me advice. The blog is http://www.livinglikeabby.blogspot.com/ and the first post should be up later today, but it's still in the building stage so don't get your hopes up :). We'll have pictures up on the site tonight...

We don't know what's coming except uncharted waters because this type of cancer usually has a relatively poor prognosis, but it is also almost never caught this early. The oncologist said he usually doesn't see this cancer until the dogs have ulcerated "plaques" all over them and at that time surgery is not an option. So that means, he doesn't know if the surgery to remove the lumps has helped or not. I guess we'll find out...

All the best to all of you - hug your pets from us!

Jen, Mike, Sam, Abby, the cats, and Emmy