Sep 20, 2016 at 01:49 am

Monday 19 September 2016

Update posted by Tracy Youens

I rang the clinic to make an appointment to visit Cassie for 2.30pm and was told that she was still quite bright and they were still feeding her with a syringe. We arrived at the clinic 45 minutes early, having started out in plenty of time and not wanting to hit any traffic to make sure we got to spend as much time with her as possible. As we pulled up in the car, we saw one of the kennel assistants guiding Cassie through the main entrance to take her out for her two-hourly walk. I waved to the assistant and pointed at Cassie saying that she was our dog. Cassie was really pleased to see us unexpectedly as she must have thought we would be there later as we had been the last three days. We accompanied the two of them on the walk and returned to the building to wait in reception for our appointment. Cassie wouldn't go any further past reception until I had walked back to the kennels entrance with her, maybe thinking what a short visit it was.

10 minutes later, we were taken into a room by the receptionist to wait for her to be brought out to us. They brought out a bowl of food with a selection of cold meat to see if she would eat anything today. I tried her on a small piece of sausage and she took it off me and ate it! Several pieces later and all the sausage was gone, so I tried her on other cold meats which she refused. Then I tried her on some small pieces of cheese which we had brought with us to try and tempt her and she ate that too! I couldn't praise her enough and then disappeared to reception to see if they had any more sausage and a bowl of water for her to drink. When they returned with both, she ate a few more pieces of sausage and had a fairly long drink.

They were all really excited that she had finally eaten something as it had been a week since her last small meal when she had managed to eat a small amount of chicken then not wanted anything else. Around 10 minutes later, the oncologist came into the room to see us and discuss her case. She said that she was quite pleased with her progress so far, especially as she hadn't seen Cassie since Friday when she'd had the chemotherapy treatment. She was happy that Cassie was now eating something and they were going to continue to offer food to her at small intervals throughout the day. If she still refused that, then she would be syringe fed again as she was taking her medicine orally now. She was going to remove the drip and see how she went overnight. If she is still making progress, then we will be allowed to take her home tomorrow!! We will be shown how to syringe feed her in case she won't eat again.

The oncologist will be ringing us in the morning to give an update on how she has gone overnight and, all being well, we will arrive to pick her up in the early afternoon. The rest of the visit consisted of 3 small walks, some quality time together and Cassie starting to tire at the end of it. The nurse came back a couple of hours after she first brought Cassie out to collect her as she needed her medication administered. We said our goodbyes with the promise that we would be back tomorrow to take her home.

We left the clinic feeling really happy that we will have our beloved Cassie back home with us very soon. She will need to return again in a week's time for her next chemotherapy treatment. This will consist of a different set of medicines to the last one and may show different results. She will be monitored weekly before and after each treatment session leading right up until Christmas.

I will be updating again tomorrow when she is back home and will continue to post updates if there are any changes to her condition and after each treatment.

Please keep praying for her. We very much appreciate the donations everyone has made so far and would ask that you continue to make them as there is a long road ahead of us.

A big thank you from Cassie, Tracy, Mark and Rex xx


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