Annette

:wub:

We were lucky in that way with Pogo. The UW emailed us discharge notes and instructions. I also had our local vet email me the results of lab work that was done for him. Our local vet also sent all the results of Pogo's lab work to the UW. Pogo's email file is large. I also printed everything out and kept it in a file folder on the kitchen island along with all his meds. His file has been put away but the box that I kept all his meds in still sits on the island. How is Taylor doing?

So sorry.

Yes, like a bunny. But even worse, like a girl

Pogo's nose and the pads of his feet turned pink.

So sorry.

So sorry. Both Miriam and I know how you feel. Roy works about 2 1/2 hours away and is only home on weekends. The quiet is deafening around here. Miriam does not do well as an only child either. She hasn't shown interest in cookies since we put Pogo down last week and I finally got her to eat tonight (wouldn't touch food for the last 2 days), it took scrambled eggs and homemade doggy stew. Sending hugs.

Will be thinking about you and Franny today.

We had Pogo put to sleep today. On June 30th there were more mets on his lungs and he also was suffering from a pneumomediastinum. There was also an area that appeared to be fluid. About 3:00am this morning I think I heard Pogo yelp. He also became restless, was breathing hard, and coughing. He finally settled down. I already had an appointment locally for him for blood work to be done (we switched to doxorubicin chemotherapy) one week after his chemo treatment. Pogo always lived up to his name. He was definitely our pogo stick. He hadn't "pogo'd" since we got back from Madison on the 30th. When I took him in for his checkup today, our boy who loved going to the vet did not want to get out of the car when we got there. Miriam was also along because she had some lumps removed a couple weeks ago and she was in to get the stitches out. The vet tech ended up carrying Pogo into the clinic while I walked Miriam in. The vet said that his lymph nodes were swollen. She did xrays. His pneumomediastinum appeared to be resolved. There appeared to be more mets but the alarming thing was the amount of fluid there appeared to be. Anything that we would choose to do to determine what was happening would be too stressful for him considering his lung capacity that he had. We were considering waiting till tomorrow or Saturday to have him put to sleep (at home), but there was the question looming "What happens if he has another episode and it is worse? How much would he suffer before I could get him to an emergency vet?" I think Roy was in Sheboygan today. He wanted to be here but couldn't be. We will pick Pogo up on Saturday and bury him together at home.

Pogo is gone. I will write more later.

Pogo's official discharge information: "Unfortunately, Pogo was noted to have progression of his pulmonary metastatic disease. He was also noted to have a pneumomediastinum which is stable from 28JUN16 when radiographs were taken by your veterinarian. The cause of this finding is unknown at this time. It is likely due to cervical trauma causing a tracheal tear but that cannot be confirmed without further diagnostics such as CT scan and/or endoscopy under general anesthesia. It could have been from pulling on his leash while he was wearing a tight neck collar or other type of trauma or a foreign body such as a grass awn. Typically, a pneumomediastinum is treated supportively with oxygen supplementation if needed (not in Pogo's case as he is breathing and doing well) and it typically resolves on its own. However, if he appears to be worsening or his cough does not improve or worsens, further diagnostics described previously would be recommended. Please watch his resting respiratory rate a few times daily to ensure that he is not clinically affected by this. His respiratory rate is taken by counting his respirations (chest movements) in 15 seconds and multiplying that by 4. It should not be over 30 to 36 breaths per minute. If his respiratory rate is increased or he develops increased respiratory effort and/or exercise intolerance, please have him evaluated as soon as possible by your veterinarian or us as it may represent an emergency."

The only thing we can think of is that he hurt himself when he freaked out when Miriam was wearing a lampshade for the lumps she had removed. Dr. Fernandez seems to suspect it may have been caused by him acting like Pogo (black lab in a greyhound suit) and him pulling on his collar further injured his neck (which he hurt not long after we adopted him by running head on into the back door). He is still happy. Our local vet suspected kennel cough with his coughing because they had a recent break out around here and he is/was on antibiotics and I think they are curbing his appetite I got the impression that radiology may be suspecting that he has pneumonia because Dr. Fernandez wants us to continue him on the antibiotics. We haven't received the discharge instructions yet, When I get them, if there is nothing in the notes regarding the suspected pneumonia, I will stop the antibiotics if he continues to lose his appetite. We aren't going to do for it. Hopefully it will resolve on its own.

Got back from Madison a couple hours ago. I haven't received the discharge paperwork with the technical jargon. Here is my best understanding. Dr. Fernandez believes that Pogo may have a torn trachea and that is causing all the air that we are seeing in his xrays. He thinks that may also be causing his coughing. At this point we are not going to do anything to get a positive confirmation of a torn trachea. He does not believe the mets are causing him to cough. That being said, he has more mets on his lungs and we have discontinued the Palladia. We will try doxorubicin every 3 weeks.

Not too good. Will post more. Just got home and am in the middle of a thunderstorm and have a scared dog.

Sending gentle hugs. The oncology and cardiac departments are great at the UW. We will be out there tomorrow. Originally it was just for Pogo's monthly check up but now we need to find out why Pogo has too much air in his chest cavity. I spoke with his oncologist yesterday and there is a word for what he is experiencing but I sure can't remember it (too long and technical sounding). You will be in our thoughts today.

Just got off the phone with the local vet. She spoke with Pogo's oncologist in Madison. He agrees that there is more air than there should be. They just have to figure out where it is coming from. According to the oncologist, Palladia can sometimes cause ulcers. Does Pogo have an ulcer on his trachea and this is where the air is coming from? Hopefully they will be able to determine that when he is in Madison. The oncologist can't do a true comparison of the xrays done by our local vet to the xrays done last month in Madison because they are different machines, but he is hopeful that the lung mets may have shrunk possibly We will find out at least that much when we go to Madison.

Pogo's amp was just over 7 months ago. He did have some high blood pressure but he is on meds for it. I have an email out to Dr. C and am waiting for a reply.

The local vet is not sure what is happening with Pogo. He has developed a cough, but his lungs sounded clear. Our vet thought he may have an infection of some sort because his throat appears irritated. What concerns her is that there appears to be air between his ribs and skin on the side opposite of his amputation. Xrays were done locally and it appears there is either air or liquid (possibly) in the general chest area (I am not sure what to call it, I do know there is a lot of black space on his xrays where there normally is not black space). Pogo at times is painful, letting out yelps. His coughing started when we had hot weather (for Wisconsin), but it stopped when the humidity dropped. Miriam had surgery just over 1 week ago to remove a couple lumps (benign) but we had her in a lamp shade the first two days and that totally freaked Pogo out. He frantically tried to stay out of her way. Maybe he aggravated his neck injury when he did this??? We don't know. The last day or two he started coughing again so I contacted our local vet. Pogo is scheduled to go to Madison on Thursday for his monthly checkup. Our vet emailed the latest xrays to the oncologist in Madison. We are waiting to hear back from him to see if he wants us there a day early.

How common is it for bone cancer to spread to the ribs?

Pogo is still a pogo stick. He is happy and eats like a pig. His energy can sometimes be a detriment since he hurt his neck shortly after we adopted him (less than 2 years ago) by leaping onto the door stoop and crashing into the door. Tuesday he was doing a lot of yelping and we hope that it is just his old injury coming back to haunt him. I do think it is a good possibility this is the reason because Miss Miriam had two lumps removed on Monday and now she is wearing the cone of shame. Miriam is miserable wearing it and when she gets up, all she does is hang her head when she walks. Pogo has had to leap out of the way several times because of this. I am guessing he strained his neck somehow when doing that. Luckily the biopsy reports came back as negative for cancer on Miriam's lumps. We will be back in Madison on the 30th for his monthly check up. Keeping our fingers crossed. Pogo is strictly on Palladia now because the lung mets disqualified him for the rapamycin study. He made it 1/2 through the study before the mets showed up.

We will keep Star in our thoughts. Sending gentle hugs. If you happen to go back next week on the 30th (and I see you) I will give Star a gentle hug in person. Pogo will be in Madison for a recheck.

So sorry

Miriam had a lump/blister show up on her front paw in between the pads back in April. Took her to the vet to have it aspirated. The only thing that was found was blood. The lump itself has become smaller, but it is bothering her more. It does swell up occasionally. I took her back to the vet today and the vet aspirated it again. Again there were no cancer cells to be found. There is an increase in white blood cells. The vet suspects Bacterial Pododermatitis and we are going to start by trying antibiotics. Does anyone have experience with this? Is this something that can be surgically removed if the antibiotics can't do anything? Thanks

I never posted Pogo's update to this thread. On Tuesday Pogo was back in Madison for a check-up since the mets were found on his lungs at the beginning of May. It was a long day because they basically had 2 days of appointments crammed into one day because of the holiday. Pogo's oncologist was actually making rounds in the waiting room (the exam/consultation rooms were all occupied) to speak to the parents of the "fur kids" he was taking care of. As he came towards us, he had a smile on his face. At the beginning of May, Pogo had 5 mets on his lungs. On the 31st he had 4 mets. Overall 3 of the mets are gone, 2 shrunk in size, and 2 small ones appeared. For now Pogo has stabilized. His oncologist also said Pogo's blood pressure was high at 202. He sent us home with Amlodipine and Benazepril. We kinda doubt he has "whitecoat syndrome" since he bounces, smiles, and loves on all the "whitecoats" he can get a hold of. Dr. Couto has emailed me information on Greyhounds and high blood pressure that I have forwarded to Pogo's oncologist at the UW. We have no idea what has caused 3 of his mets disappear and 2 to decrease in size. We are now treating him with Palladia. Pogo was part of the rapamycin study (he was half way through the treatment) until the mets appeared on his lungs. Before the rapamycin, Pogo had 4 carboplatin treatments. Since the study is basically an experiment, is it possible we are experiencing some sort of delayed reaction to the rapamycin? I don't know and I don't think Pogo's oncologist at the vet school knows either. I have been keeping Dr. Cuoto up-to-date with Pogo and he has only seen mets shrink in OSA patients a couple times. We are just so happy and are hoping that this isn't just a fluke.

Took Pogo back to Madison yesterday for a check-up since his oncologist found 5 mets on his lungs at the beginning of May. The vet school was incredibly busy. Because of the holiday, they were trying to fit in two days of appointments into one day. Pogo's oncologist came out to the waiting room (consultation/exam rooms were full) and went to each of his patient's parents to give them an update on their fur kids. When he came to us, he had a big smile on his face. On May 6th Pogo had 5 mets on his lungs. There are only 4 now. Yesterday the xrays showed that 3 mets were gone and 2 had considerably shrunk. There were an additional 2 small mets also. So overall Pogo is considered stabilized.