Jill's Journey

When I look at this pic, I just hear that song playing in my head.  I took this picture a few hours after getting home from the vet on Sunday.  Jill had her weigh in after being off a metronomic dose of Leukeran for two weeks to see if she would gain weight before we started to panic.  She had previously lost 15% of her body weight in 6 weeks.  I was panicking.  It did not appear to me that she was eating any less and she was having very mild GI issues, but nothing that should cause her to lose such a significant amount of weight.

So Sunday would be very telling.  If she had lost more weight, we would have had to proceed with an abdominal ultrasound because something wasn’t right.  Her bloodwork was perfect, so it had to be something internal.  I can say with all honesty, I was just as nervous for this weigh in as I’ve been for any chest x-ray.  The nice vet tech brought her to “the back”  and I sat there (they were also doing another urine test on her, nothing much to worry about they just wanted to check something, it all came back normal) waiting and waiting.  The receptionist who just adores Jill went back at one point and came out and yelled “9 POUNDS 8 OUNCES!”  Well.  I thought I heard wrong.  That’s 11 ounces she gained in 2 weeks.  And now I can breathe again.

So it seems the Leukeran was making her feel yuck and she just wasn’t eating as much as she usually does.  So now who feels horribly guilty?  Well yeah, me.  It’s ok though, we figured it out!

So where do we go from here?

I originally brought up doing metronomics with Jill’s oncologist because I honestly hated the thought of not having a plan after finishing IV chemo.  After Jill had her toe amputated in June 2012, the plan was to do nothing because the margins were clean and look where that got us.  I think there’s always a fear in me that the “do nothing” approach just isn’t good enough because it bit me the first time.  But I need to learn to accept the fact that this time isn’t like last time.  This is an unpredictable disease, especially in Jill for so many different reasons.  We really didn’t know what we were dealing with the first time and when it metastasized in her leg, we really fought it head on.

But I swear, when I took this picture on Sunday something clicked inside me.  Everything is going to be fine.  Look at how happy she is.  Look at how healthy she looks.  Maybe “doing nothing” is really doing SOMETHING.  It’s letting her live her life.  She’s been fighting cancer for 14 months now.  Do I need to ask more of her?  There needs to be something said for the power of just living a happy life.  She deserves that.  She’s been such a tough little fighter throughout this whole thing.  We can try to give her a lower dose of Leukeran and see if she does OK on that, but honestly, I think it’s time for “Jill’s Journey Part 4 – Relaxation” to begin 🙂 and for the first time in a long time, I am happy and feeling like everything is going to be all right.