Katie's Story
by Lori
Katie is 14 years old, and in March of 2005 I noticed that she was losing weight. The vet couldn’t find a reason why-blood tests, ultrasound, and x-ray were all normal. In May, I took her back because she wasn’t eating very much and that’s when they felt the thickening of the intestines. My vet said it could be lymphoma, the only way to know for sure was a surgical biopsy. After a week of struggling with the decision I finally scheduled the surgery. The biopsy results came back 3 days after the surgery as small cell lymphoma and IBD -- no wonder the poor thing didn’t want to eat. We decided to go with the Prednisone and Leukeran protocol since it is small cell, and this protocol also helps with IBD. We did not want to drive her 3 hours away to an oncologist so my vet worked via phone with an oncologist in Madison. She’s getting 4mg of leukeran once every two weeks indefinitely and 5mg of pred everyday. After 45 days the pred drops to 2.5mg everyday for 14 days, then 2.5mg every other day indefinitely.
As of late June 2005. Too early to tell if she will go into remission since she’s only had one dose of the leukeran. The first dose of leukeran made her feel bad for a few days. She didn’t want to eat very much even on the pred. After 4 days she started eating better again so the leukeran must have made its way through her system. I am going to try her next dose and see what happens. My vet said if it makes her sick we should drop the dose down to 2mg.
Updated November 2006 - Katie just turned 16 on Nov.1! She is still on the Pred/Leukeran protocol and still doing well. She also gets B12 injections every two weeks and Omega 3 fish oil. Katie's lymphoma has been considered in remission for the last 7 months. We found a mammary lump in June 06 that turned out to be cancer but it was very small and we hope we got it all by removing that mammary gland. Katie's biggest problem is constipation which i believe causes some of the vomiting. She remains happy-playing with her milk rings-and affectionate.
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Katie
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