Cassie's Courage

We met with the oncologist on Friday, and deciding to go ahead with the chemo treatments was a no-brainer.  He said that average survival rate WITHOUT chemo is 2-3 months.  WITH chemo, the average is 12-15 months.  So I am hopefully optimistic.

Our first treatment day is tomorrow.  We are scheduled for a total of six, with three weeks between each one.  They will alternate between Cisplatin and Adriamycin. 

My biggest challenge now is Cassie and her “recovery”.  She continues to act “depressed”, even as I coax her into more and more of our normal routine – running errands with me in the car, visiting my Dad at his assisted living facility, chatting with neighbors in the front yard, etc.  And while she sometimes will take 20 steps or so at a rapid pace, most of the time she takes 2 or 3 and then stops.  I have to really convince her to take a few more.    This weekend, we visited my Dad and after I got her out of the car, she took about 6 steps and just laid down in the pine straw.  I remembered reading that they will let you know when they need to rest, so I just stood there beside her (in the heat) for almost 10 minutes, at which point I did ask her to get up and keep walking.  She took maybe 10 steps (with rests in between) and then laid down again.

It’s not that she has a very strenuous life. . . . before we got in the car for my visit to Dad, she hadn’t done much except lay on the couch that day.

She has done well walking UP the front porch steps (5 steps).  I haven’t asked her to do more steps than that yet.  She has a VERY hard time going down, even with me holding on to the harness to give her some support.  She balks at the top and turns back and seems like she would rather just stay there all day than go down the steps.  I know that DOWN is harder on front amputees than UP, so I’m not too surprised.  I AM surprised though that even with a number of successes, she is still terrified of going down.

Nighttimes are the biggest challenge.  She wakes me between 5 and 8 times a night, every night.  She pants loudly and quickly most of the night, has a hard time finding a comfortable spot and seems to have to go outside a lot (or maybe that’s just an excuse for waking me up!).  I have positioned her bed and support pillows every way I can possible think of to try to make her more comfortable, but she just keeps turning around and around, and pawing at the bed.  If I don’t respond to the loud panting, she starts crying.  I now know how mothers of newborn infants feel. . . . I am EXHAUSTED!  I actually was awake last night from 3 to 4:30, trying to drown out the panting (after taking her out, making sure she had water, offering her a treat (which she didn’t take), plumping the pillows, and just petting her).  I am looking forward to an 8 hour overnight flight next week, because I will get better sleep on the plane than I’m getting in my own bed!

I’m still giving her Tramadol for pain, and I started giving her Gabapentin last week.  The vet thought the Gabapentin might ease some of the anxiety, and maybe help if she’s suffering from phantom limb pain.

Dazed and confused and weary. . . . but still hopeful and very much in love with my Cassie. . . .  🙂

~ by on March 19, 2012 .