Sep 21, 2016 at 04:29 pm

Tuesday 20 September 2016

Update posted by Tracy Youens

I rang the clinic at 10.30am to see how Cassie had been overnight. She was still eating from the kennel assistant's hand and had been drinking as well. She was off the drip and I was advised that she could go home. I arranged an appointment to pick her up at 2.30pm as the oncologist wanted to speak to us about her care outside the clinic.

The oncologist advised us that Cassie was still a very sick dog but thought that her being at home would be good for her. She gave us a bag full of medication to give her at home, including antibiotics, anti-diarrhoea tablets and steroids with a schedule on how many to take and when. She also gave us a couple of cans of Royal Canin recovery food which contains the nutrients she will need to help in her recovery. She told us that we should try and get Cassie eating small meals regularly and if we had any problems or concerns, we should ring up and speak to her. She also advised us that her tummy had reduced from 74 cm from when she had arrived to 68 cm from this morning and her temperature was normal. This meant that the chemotherapy is working and the fact that her spleen has been shrinking has a huge effect on her wanting to eat as it's not pressing against her stomach as much so that she doesn't feel so full all the time.

After having made an appointment for Friday to bring her back for her next chemotherapy treatment, we left with Cassie and her bed. Mark had to lift her into the car as she is still very weak from not having eaten for so long. I sat on the back seat with her lying next to me and we arrived home around 45 minutes later. Mark had to carry her out of the car again and set her on her feet, a bit wobbly, and back home for a couple of days. Rex, our rescue dog, greeted her enthusastically at the front door and she was a little overwhelmed by him but he soon quietened down when he saw that she was poorly. He had been sniffing us when we got home each night from visiting her and must have been wondering where she had been.

The first thing Cassie did was go to the kitchen and drink some water. I tried her on some of the food the vets gave us but she only managed to eat about 10ml of it from a syringe. We had to give her 4 steroid tablets soon after getting home and she needed to eat to help prevent an upset stomach. She had another 25ml after taking them and went outside to wander around the garden. Several times she tried to go to the toilet but nothing came out. She also has bad diarrhoea at the moment as her body has only just started processing food again and it will take a while for things to work properly, as well as being a side-effect of the medication. After having been on the drip for nearly a week, her bladder also has to get to a new regime and her body is trying to process everything.

When we gave Rex his evening meal, we prepared some for Cassie too and she ate it from my hand. She also ate more of the Royal Canin and some cocktail sausages which was the first thing we had managed to get her to eat at the clinic. We were told that we should try to get her eating and the steroids would give her an appetite, but also a great thirst. She has been drinking quite a lot and I have been guiding her outside to go to the toilet. She is still quite weak and wobbly on her feet and fell over a couple of times so I followed her around the garden, making sure she didn't fall again. Then I had to help her back up the steps to the kitchen each time as sometimes she doesn't have the strength to do that.

She was hungry again later and ate some more sausages and a small amount of cheese. As she is so undernourished, they recommended a fairly high fat diet to build her reserves up again. I was worried as some of her diarrhoea had blood in it and rang the vets to voice my concerns. Aside from this, she seemed okay in herself (as well as can be expected, anyway). They advised us to monitor it and to ring the next morning to speak to the oncologist. If she seemed to be getting worse, we were to take her back up to the clinic.

I slept downstairs with her close to the back door in case she needed to go out in a hurry and she only slept for an hour or so at a time with regular outings to the garden until she finally fell asleep curled up in her basket at around 5.30am, not waking up until around 9am.

It will take time to build up her strength again and it's still a long road ahead for her recovery. We really appreciate the messages and donations that everyone has made so far. Please feel free to share with your friends to help us meet our target. Thank you.

Cassie, Tracy, Mark and Rex xx

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