Today has been shit. There is no way other way to explain it. Taco got stung by a bee last week and we had to take him to the ER vet since his nose swelled up. Well, he seemed to heal just fine from that. Then yesterday, I noticed something was "off" with him. He wouldn't cuddle, wasn't interested in sleeping on the luxury sheets in our bed, wouldn't eat and was very lethargic. So we decided to take him to the vet this morning. When we got there, they took his temp at it was 104.1, so he def had something going on. They ran blood work and said they would do a whole body xray to see if they can find anything suspicious. About an hour later, the doc comes in the room and sits down next to me with the lab results in her hands. Well, its a CBC with a differential. I know what those are, we see those every week with Lucy, I also know how to read one. I was anxiously glancing over her shoulder and the first thing I saw was low platelets and low ANC. Before she could even say a word, I say "oh my god! you are thinking cancer?" She said "well...that is a possibility, that is one of two explanations" She asked how I knew, and I told her Lucy had leukemia and that those numbers looked like hers did when she was diagnosed except the WBC and RBC was different. She said that was what was throwing them off. They couldn't say for sure if it was an autoimmune disease or leukemia...yep..heard that right leukemia. Basically the bee sting started an allergic reaction and that started his body to go into frenzy mode in regards to his immune system (this is often how children are diagnosed as well, they get an illness they can't seem to shake). Well that is a sign of either an autoimmune disease or leukemia. And his counts weren't telling them the full story because he had mix of the two clinical presentations. I sat there in shock. I kept saying "you have to be kidding me?" over and over and over. So, here is the plan. They gave him a shot of dex (yep, same steroid Lucy takes) and we have to give him prednisone every day along with an antibiotic The steroid is given in hopes of "jump starting the immune system" to help get over whatever attack is going on. Steroids are weird because while they vamp up your counts, its a false count, they are pushing everything out of his bone marrow basically. The end result will be 1 of 3 things. 1. He starts getting better and showing improvement with the meds and we recheck counts on Thursday. If they are better, we wait and watch. It will tell us it an autoimmune disease more than likely. 2. He doesn't improve at all the blood count comes back with a more definite picture. If he is in the beginning stages of leukemia, that is why his counts are the way they are. 3. He doesn't have any improvement, matter of fact starts to get worse. In this case, we would probably put him down. Actually, if this happens and/or he has cancer, we are putting him down anyhow. We researched. There is only a 30% chance of putting him in remission and only increases life by 90 days - 2 years. And I wouldn't want him to have to go through painful chemo with those results. Oh, and his treatment, almost same as Lucy. Has same chemo and everything. So by next Thursday, we will have an answer if not sooner.
I sent Zach a text while there saying "You are not going to believe this". He knew. He said "leukemia". I know dogs get cancer, matter of fact, we had Taco neutered so that would reduce his chance of getting cancer. But I honestly never knew dogs got leukemia. I knew of feline leukemia, but that is different bird all together. I mean really???? Leukemia?? 1 in every 3 dogs will get cancer in their lifetime, less than 1 of those get leukemia. What are the odds???? Well odds mean nothing in this house. As I was leaving and paying, the lady asked me if I needed anything else. And I lost it. I told her I would pick up my dead dog another day. She just sort of looked at me in shock. We had our last dog Scrappy die before Lucy got sick, and they held him after he died (had him for 11 years), anyhow with Lucy getting cancer and then winter, we needed to wait until the ground thawed a bit. I told her I was sorry.
So I get to the van and call Zach to go over the details then I bawled all the way home. I get home and the kids can see I was crying, so I had to explain that Taco was sick. We did not tell them anything further.
Zach then said, we had a deer in our yard. I was like "WHAT??" HOW?? Apparently a deer had jumped our neighbors fence, and their dog pinned him down (they have a golden retriever). Well the deer got loose and jumped our neighbors fence into our fenced in yard. How often do you see something like this? And how often do you hear any dog may have leukemia? This journey is about my family, and how we all cope with Lucy's illness, and Taco is a big part of our lives. BIG part. The blog is 2 kids a Taco and Cancer, and I refuse to change it to 2 kids a Taco with cancer :(
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