Kiara had her 1stround of Chemotherapy on Thursday Jan 27, 2011. We met with oncology and they told us that Kiara qualified for a clinical trial of Palladia/Piroxicam/Cyclophosphamide Therapy for Dogs with Osteosarcoma at the University of Madison Wis. We thought about it, and decided to sign her up for it. Phase 1 of the trial has her receiving 4 rounds of carboplatin every three week followed by a blood test 1 week later. After the first treatment, she is doing really well. At least better than I expected. Really the only side effect that I have noticed is she had been a little more tired but she seems happy with no other noticed side effects. What I enjoy seeing the most is that looking into her eyes I can tell she is back to the dog she was before the cancer diagnosis – minus the leg of course. She has been comfortable, is off pain meds for 3-4 days now and is getting around quite well. She is doing stairs well and is doing some running outside with little effort. My husband and I had noticed that her gums seemed a bit paler than normal this morning which was a little concerning so we took her temperature and it was normal so we didn’t feel it was anything to worry about, but I will be calling the oncologist tomorrow. Later in the day they were pink and normal. Which was really nice to see.
She seems to be handling the snow really well. She was outside to today with our daughter playing in the snow.
I just wanted to convey our thanks for the support and advice over the pass several weeks. It really helped to know we were not alone in our journey.
Thanks for the great update! Glad to hear Kiara is doing well. 🙂
Oh cool! Yoda (who had osteosarcoma) got his amputation and treatment at UW Madison and more recently my current tripawd (injury, not cancer) Gerry had to have some dental work done there. I have had really good experiences there, especially with the oncology department. In fact, I sent them a Tripawds calendar a little bit ago. I have yet to check to see if they received it though. Best wishes and paws crossed for great results with the chemo and clinical trial!!!