Taco continued....and update on Lucy's numbers

Lucy had clinic on Wednesday and her counts dropped....a lot.  Her ANC is below 500 which deems her neutropenic, just like Taco. They both have the same WBC and close to the same ANC.  This is just ridiculous.  So we are home bound until next Wednesday (Lucy is) to see if her number rise.  They have reduced her chemo to 1/2 this week hoping that helps her bone marrow recover.  Its crazy because we were JUST mentioning that her numbers have seemed to finally stabilize, and we have found our "sweet" number....WRONG.  And I am pretty pissed about it.  I don't know why.  I mean, we deal with her counts going all over the place all the time. I don't know why I'm so upset over it this week.  It could be that this means she misses her cousins birthday party...AGAIN, and that we are limited on what we can prepare for her to eat..AGAIN, and that we can't make any plans with our without her...AGAIN.  I feel a little trapped today.  Its beautiful out, and I'm moping.  I'm having a little bit of "poor poor me party".  And I intend to do so as long as I want!  It doesn't help that Taco is still in limbo as well.
So here is the update on that little fellow.  We took him to U of I Animal hospital on Sunday to get a second opinion.  The doctor there had his numbers before he got there, so when he walked in the door all majestic and happy, she was confused.  She said based on his counts, he should NOT be up and looking so good.  They ran a panel of tests on him and came to the same conclusion as our vet--we have no clue what is going on.  So they decided to confer with internal medicine to see if anybody there had any clues.  They did come up with the diagnosis that Taco has a bone marrow disorder. What disorder, we will not know unless we do a bone marrow biopsy, which is very painful.  Zach and I discussed this option, and looked at the different types of disorders he may have.  Basically all of them are cancer.  And the prognosis is not good in any of them, and the treatment is chemo..horrible chemo.  We decided not to do the bone aspiration.  It would only tell us the name of his cancer, and that would really do nothing for us except make us even more sad.  So we sat down with the kids and explained what was going on.  We told them Taco was very sick with a doggy disease (no we did not say cancer or leukemia and we don't plan to).  We told them that we weren't sure how long he had left to live, and that we were going to make his life as comfortable as possible for as long as we could.  We told them he could die tomorrow, or next week, and that we didn't know. Poor poor Lucy.  Her lip was quivering the entire time, and then she burst into tears.  Jack, on the other hand, had his defenses up high.  He didn't say anything, or even show an ounce of emotion.  We asked if they had any questions, and we did our best to answer them.  Since we are agnostic, we explain death differently to our children.  Jack had already had the concept down.  He said "When Taco dies, we won't know where he goes, because only people and dogs that die know that, and they can't come back and tell us".  I'm so proud of his logic.  So we talked about the different options of where we thought Taco may go and what he may do.  It got us giggling as we were talking about his habits and personality.  We decided he would have all the treats he wanted and sleep on the most luxurious sheets.  We also said he would chase and catch all the squirrels he could handle.
We then took Taco to our vet the next day to talk about comfort options.  We explained and brought in the results from the blood work from U of I.  We talked about how long he may have, and decided to go ahead and run another blood test to see where he was at.  When the doctor came back in, she was in as much shock as we were.  His numbers were getting better.  Not a lot better, but better.  They should be getting worse.  So we were once again baffled.  We decided to go ahead and give him fluids, and baby food with his real food to entice him to eat, and go back on Friday for a recheck of counts.  Yesterday he was his old self.  Running, barking, playing, sleeping in, all the normal stuff.  Everyday the kids wake up and ask if he is still alive.  Jack especially.  He was quiet, but has been asking more questions as the days go on.  So basically my update on Taco....we have no update.  We have no clue what is going on.  We decided if his numbers are good tomorrow and rising, we will go forward with the bone marrow biopsy.  At least that can rule out the cancer or confirm it.  As it is, we are just really enjoying the last few days of spoiling him.
So I think that is also why I am a bit bitter.  I can handle a CBC and interpret it for Lucy, but I never thought we would be doing it for two members of our family, one being Taco. This is just insane.  We are going to schedule a radon test, although that causes lung cancer, not leukemia's.  We are going to do a soil test, and we have already had the water tested.  And none of our neighbors are sick, and they have lived here a lot longer than us.  And all the people that lived here prior to us are also fine.  So we really are doing this for more of a piece of mind.  It makes me on edge....and a little cranky, and THAT is why I feel like having a pity party today.