Happy Holidays to ALL!

Well no news is good news! I got a call the other day from NEVOG. I had an appointment for Soleil coming up. Because she continues to be in remission, and continues to do well, I was able to cancel this appointment and postpone it for another month. I discussed this with the Doctor the last time I was there.

Soleil continues to do well. She is in remission, so you would never even know she was sick at all. She is back to training in agility, and I hope to enter her in limited agility trials in the spring.

I hope everyone has very Happy Holidays! I hope the new year brings you good health and happiness!

Thanks again to everyone who helped make Soleil's remission possible!

Not sure if I mentioned it, but Soleil was on Cyclosporine treatment (eye drops) for an eye problem. Cyclosporine administration is associated with an increased risk of development of lymphoma in humans and a similar increased risk is currently being studied in dogs in England. Although the relationship between cyclosporine treatment and the development of lymphoma cannot be proven in this case, it is possible that the cyclosporine therapy may have contributed to Soleil's lymphoma.

I know 2 other dogs who were on the same cyclosporine treatment for the same eye problem, and both dogs ended up with lymphoma. Coincidence??? I don't think so. I believe the cyclosporine therapy Soleil was on, directly contributed to her getting lymphoma. While I can't prove it, I believe it to be true. Would she have gotten lymphoma had she not been on the cyclosporine treatment? We will never know the answer to that.

Our last NEVOG appointment for awhile!

We had another healthy check up and got more good news. Everything looks great. We have an appointment in 2 months, but the Doctor told me if everything is still going good that I can extend that out further. So, we are now done with the monthly "healthy" visits.

It is wonderful to see Soleil so healthy and playing and enjoying life so much. I know the cancer is still in her system and it's only a matter of time before it rears its ugly head again, but I hope I don't have to deal with that again for a very long time.

Soleil's check up at NEVOG

Well I am very happy to report Soleil got an excellent report this week on her first "healthy" checkup. She also got lots and lots of cookies from all the vet techs there because they hadn't seen her for such a long time. I think they wanted to make up for all the weekly cookies she had missed.

Her lymph nodes looked great and her bloodwork looked good. Her red blood cell count was on the low/normal line, but the Doctor didn't seem worried about it at all. Her white blood cell counts were all back up in the normal range. I was smiling all the way home.

Soleil's Fun Weekend at the Agility Trial

I am sorry I have not posted in awhile. I just want to update everyone on Soleil's condition.

She is doing GREAT!!! She is very active is playing like she is a 2 year old again.

I entered Soleil in an agility trial that was held September 12 & 13. She was entered in 2 runs a day. Three of the four runs were beautiful, but the jumpers run on Saturday, Soleil's handler (me) totally screwed up the run for her. She didn't seem to mind because she was out there doing agility and having a blast.

The first run was a Standard run. The run was perfect except she came to the table with a little too much speed and slid off it. This is a problem we have been having since I jump her at the lower jump height now. The table for 20" dogs is six inches shorter than the table for the 24" dogs. So Soleil jumps up thinking she has to jump an extra 6 inches and overshoots the table. The rest of the run was perfect.

The jumpers run on Saturday was a total disaster. I got stuck behind the wing of jump number 3 and ended up sending her all over the place in the wrong direction. Poor Soleil. She tries so hard to do it right, but sometimes her handler doesn't get in the right place at the right time or doesn't give her the right information she needs to run the course correctly. If she had a better handler, she would do so much better.

Sunday's Standard run was another beautiful run with one tiny little mistake. I pulled away from the weave poles too soon and caused her to pop out at the 10th pole instead of completing all 12 poles. I didn't even see it and I thought she qualified until I saw the scribe sheet. Then someone told me she didn't finish the weave poles. It was a beautiful run and she had fun. That's what counts.

Sunday's jumpers run was another beautiful run. No table to worry about in jumpers, and I didn't pull her out of the weave poles this time, so she qualified and earned her Excellent Jumpers Preferred title (AJP).

She had a blast and it was so nice to be out there with her again. She really loves doing agility. I am just happy to be able to go to the start line with her. I don't really care how she does, just as long as she is having fun.

Someone took videos of the runs for me. He said he will send them to me, but I haven't received them yet. I was waiting for the videos before posting this, but I don't know when I'll be getting the videos, and I started to get emails from people asking about Soleil, so I figured I better update people. I will post the videos once I receive them.

Soleil has a check up at NEVOG on Thursday. This will be the first time we will go when we are not scheduled to receive chemo!!! YEAH!!!

I will post the results of her visit later this week.

Again (I just can't say it enough), THANK YOU to everyone for making this possible.

YAHOO!!! We are done!

Well, today I had very mixed news. We went for our last appointment at NEVOG today. YAHOO! When Soleil's bloodwork came back, many of her counts were very low. They were too low to have the Vinblastine chemo treatment. I was not pleased to hear that. Her counts have been low before, but never low enough that she could not have a treatment. But, the Dr. said it was not a problem, that it is not uncommon for this to happen. We were sent home with the Cytoxin, which we will start next week. She will get one pill a day for 5 days. That will be her LAST chemo!

So while I am thrilled that we are almost finally done with the 18 week series, and we had our very last "treatment" visit to NEVOG, I am disappointed her blood counts were so low. She has an appointment in a month for a check up. We will see how things look then. Her bloodwork should be much better because she will have been off of chemo for 3 weeks.

Getting Toward the End!

Had another visit to NEVOG today. Soleil's blood work looked great and she had an Adriamycin treatment today. Adria is given with a slow injection. They do a flush of fluids to make sure they have a good vein, then they give the Adria, followed by a second flush of fluids.

The good news is this is her last Adriamycin injection! YEAH!!! Soleil has a week off of no chemo, so we will go back in two weeks. That will be our last chemo visit!!! She will get one more IV of Vinblastine and we will go home with the Cytoxcin pills and then she is DONE with her chemo treatments.

After that we will go to monthly check up visits.

So far so good. I know some dogs who come out of remission once they are off the chemo, and other dogs who stay in remission. I hope Soleil is one of the later.

Again, THANK YOU to everyone who has made this possible!

For some reason this blog site has a problem showing 5 photos in one blog, so here is the photo of the family from this past weekend.

Demi, Abby, Des, Mickey, & Soleil

We had visitors

Soleil had an exciting weekend. Mickey's mother and sister came for a visit, and then we drove up to New Hampshire to visit another one of his sisters, so it was the 3 siblings, Mickey's mom and Soleil. We went to a training facility and all the dogs got to work in agility and obedience. Soleil had a blast doing agility. Susan got some pictures of her, but most of them came out blurry because she was going too fast for the camera.

Here are some pictures from Soleil's busy weekend.

Soleil doing the weave poles.

Soleil taking a jump.

Soleil taking the panel jump.

Mickey, Soleil, Abby, and Des.