Week 3: Remission! WINNING! REALLY winning. Not like that crazy guy winning.

Yesterday, we went to Dr. Freeman, whose office is at Dove Lewis, for my third chemo session.  When I left, Jim (the great guy who sits at the desk and gives me treats) gave my mom a piece of paper that said “…His lymph nodes are back to normal size and he appears to be in remission for lymphoma! Yah!...” There were BIG sighs of relief all around. My mom doesn't believe ANYTHING unless she sees it for herself.  She says "Glass Half Empty" is her Native American name.  So, here it is in writing...well, typing. I have to admit, I was starting to worry but I think I've gotten over those manic moments for now.

Of course, I thought that meant no more ground beef or scrambled eggs.  Au contraire.  My remission STARTED yesterday.  It lasts, on average, 6 to 18 months.  So, for the next 5 months, I WILL be going back to see Jim, the treat guy, and Dr. Freeman and the rest of the people at Dove Lewis.  The medicine is really not that bad and whatever ill-effects I may feel are completely overshadowed by the exceptional additions to my diet.  Spinach a few nights ago…yogurt…these delicious dog smoothies…  I heard my mom talking to someone about chicken necks and backs in a pressure cooker.  Not too appetizing by the sound of it but one never knows. Before long, I'll be back to my usual self.  Charming folks with my scintillating personality, witty repartee, and amazing balancing skills (see above). As a matter of fact, I was SO feisty yesterday, they've given me a prescription sedative for my next trip.  I'm sure you'd need one, too, if someone tried to dry shave YOUR leg and stick a needle in it. 

When I was getting my chemo (this week it's Vincristine IV again), my mom went to Kornblatts and had a bagel with her friend Kathy.  Kathy's dog, Sam, had lymphoma, too.  Sam was very young and lived for a little while longer but even with the chemo, he never went into remission. Poor guy. Kathy sounded like a great dog mom, though.  She cooked extra special meals and got mushroom pills for Sam from someone she called a hole-istic vet.  She gave the left over pills to my mom so now I'm getting them in my ground beef.  I'll make sure to take them every day and think of Sam when I do.

There are SO many dogs that come in to Dove Lewis for cancer treatments when I'm there.  I feel lucky that my parents can afford this stuff because I remember what Dr. Freeman said the first day..."a few months to live."  Maybe people think we don't understand what they say thanks to that Larson cartoon but we can tell just by the tone.  You could say "I'm going to feed you prime rib tonight" but if you say it like you're mad or you make one of those wrinkly faces when you say it, we think you're saying something bad.  Or that we did something bad. Or that you're mad.  But we also know when you're upset.  We can just tell that by the way you smell.  It's a dog/nose thing.

So, I got home yesterday and was ready to celebrate, BIG time.  We went out on the deck.  Ran around a bit.  Sniffed at a few things.  Nothing new. Drank about 18 gallons of water (that's what the Prednisone does) and I was looking forward to just hanging out and soaking up some rays.  There WAS sun on Tuesday.  Unfortunately, it lasted about 2 minutes, as it usually does this time of year. We were disappointed but, as my dad says, "Here in Oregon, it's a dry rain."  I'm not exactly sure what that means.  They also said that about the heat in Arizona when we lived there: "It's a dry heat."  Like THAT made it any better. A convection oven is dry heat. I want to cook with it; not stick my head in it or live in it.  At the end of the summer when we had to go outside, it was like a blast furnace.  Even the pool was too hot.  But I digress.

I was thinking of my brother Fred when I was at Dove Lewis.  Fred and I got into a fight last year. Nothing tragic.  Just your normal sibling bite and growl, pick and roll thing.  I somehow managed to grab Fred's ear, though, and do some damage.  As you can see by the photos, Fred's got SOME ears.  He's never going to grow into those ears.  And when my tooth got caught and ripped it - just a little - I found out how much ears can bleed.  The living room looked like a scene from CSI - Miami, not Vegas.  It wouldn't stop and that resulted in Fred's second visit to Dove Lewis. (The first was the Imodium episode.) It was late on a Saturday night and they had a LOT of patients.  A LOT of them were "urgent," as opposed to Fred who was "stable." He's not really stable but I suppose it means something medically as opposed to socially. They folded his ear back over the rop of his head and taped until it stopped bleeding. They drew a little ear on his bandage along with a smiley face.  He was pretty funny looking.  All of the other parents at Dove Lewis - the ones who had brought their dogs and cats in and were really worried about what was going to happen to them - could only look at Fred and laugh. He's definitely good for comic relief from time to time.  They also gave my mom some epinephrine to take home which surprised her.  She said she knew epinephrine was used when people had allergic reactions to things.  Some people carry what they call "epi pens" for bee stings or peanut allergies.  What she DIDN'T know was that a few drops on a cut, or in Fred's case a ripped ear, make the blood vessels close up and stop bleeding.  Pretty cool. You can learn something from your dogs every day.  You just have to listen up and be open to it.  More often than not, let's hope these life lessons don't all require a trip to Dove Lewis for ears OR cancer.