The second round completes
The Holiday season is upon us and Yuki is finishing “Round 2” of his chemotherapy. The coming week will be his rest week with only a blood CBC to be performed to check his overall health.
Nothing changed this time from the previous round. Vincristine, Cytoxan, Vincristine again, and finally Doxorubicin. No new side effects surfaced during this round and the Oncologist comments regularly on Yuki’s excellent response to the treatments.
Yuki’s Lymph nodes continue to remain small and soft as they should be. Yuki is starting to show a decline in Platelet count, however. The sample size isn’t low enough for alarm, but there seems to be a downward trend in his Platelet count in the last few blood draws. Since this has now caught the the Doctor’s eye, they are going to start watching this closer. They tell us there are medicinal solutions to get the count back up should it continue to decline into the realm where it will become a serious issue. Meanwhile, we’ll keep an eye on Yuki for bruising or signs of internal bleeding, although they stressed this shouldn’t be a concern at his latest levels.
Outside of the chemotherapy, Yuki definitely slowed down after the Prednisone was completely removed from his regimen. Between that and the cold weather, he’s back to favoring one hip/leg and not moving around as much. The Doctor had us try replacing his Tramadol with an NSAID but it just doesn’t seem to help as much, at least that how it appears to us. He still comes alive in the evenings when everyone gets home from work and the “pack” is all sitting around together. That’s when he (and Pecos) get playful for an hour or so.
— Scott (@writeandsee) December 19, 2017
Speaking of moving around, we did take Yuki and Pecos for a walk in of the park areas nearby. It was a paved trail and the walk came to around 2 miles total upon completion. Yuki and Pecos both enjoyed nature, having to smell and sniff everything new. They both slowed a bit on the way back to the car so I think we did about right on Yuki’s walking limit. He didn’t appear lame or tender that night or the following days so I think it was just right for him.
Yuki also got an early Christmas present from his parents this year in the form of 60 brand new tennis balls. We was … overwhelmed, to say the least.
