Off To The Vet Place...Again

I'm not so sure Leukeran and me are going to be friends...I have lost my appetite and have been sick daily since Saturday. I haven't been this off my food since my White Blood Cells went low...and since I was first diagnosed with lymphoma.

My last decent eating session was Saturday morning - I barely ate yesterday and today I have eaten nothing. Meowmie gave me some periactin, an appetite stiumlant, and then went to her favourite shop called Waitrose and got me some rotisserie chicken - it is my favourite but all I could do was sit and stare at it for a while and walk away. Which to be fair was more of a reaction than regular bowls of cat food have got over the past 36 hours.

So we are heading of to the Vet Place again tomorrow to go and see Ben Vet. He hasn't been so well himself and has only just returned to work after having a visit to the Hospital, I think he had something called an hernia operation. I hope he is OK.

Wish me luck for tomorrow, I guess I'll get admitted and put on a fluid drip again cos of my lack of appetite, they will need to get some goodness inside me again I suppose. I also hope that this new evidence that Leukeran might be surplus to requirements is true...and that I can survive a little longer without it.

Leukeran and Guinea Pigs

Appetite recovered and have been eating well, I then had my first dose of Leukeran on Monday night - and promptly threw up in the early hours of Tuesday morning, just the usual acid-tummy sick.

Tuesday night was steroid night, ate very well and then once again threw up in the middle of the night - not just my usual acidy-tum sick either...all my food that I had gorged down some hours earlier.

Wednesday was OK though - ate well at night - and no medicines to take. What a relief. I hate taking pils.

Tonight is my next Leukeran dose (every third day you see). Meowmie is hoping I get on with Leukeran because it is my maintenance protocol and should hopefully keep me in remission. Ben Vet said that new evidence is surfacing that suggests that taking Leukeran after going through the Mad Wis protocol may not actually be necessary and that a lymphoma kitty like me could survive for a while without the maintenance protocol. Meowmie said she didn't want me to be a guinea pig though. I don't want to be a guinea pig either. They are well weird and don't really seem to do anything. I'll just stay being a cat please, these two guinea pigs look like they have been squashed - a sleek beauty like me could never spend my days looking like that! Britney Spears could use the top one for a wig!

Another Medicine Makes Me Sick!

Ben Vet wanted to try and see if we could stop my sicky-up-tummy before we started the Leukeran so he gave Meowmie something called effervescent Zantac which she mixed with water, she waited for the bubbles to go away and then syringed a small amount (1ml) into my mouth. It tasted FOUL...like oranges...which cats hate with a passion. I was OK for a few days with it but then I just chucked it up afterwards. YukYuk. Ben Vet needs to find an alternative anti-acid! Meowmie is not going to give it to me anymore. Thankg God.

Whiskers and Whiskas

Whiskas in Gravy is back at the top of my favourite list again and I have been eating really well recently.

My whiskers are still reducing in number and I now have 4 on my right cheek and 2 on my left cheek. Tummy is still downy and not far from bald too! At leat I don't look like this:

Another Rough Patch

I have been a little poorly - I was being sick alot, wouldn't eat and got very dehydrated. I think that last blast of chemo got to me, it was the Doxorubicin which is the strong stuff that I don't get on so well with. Meowmie took me to the Vet Place on Saturday cos I was being sick alot over the previous 3 days - and they kept me in overnight and put me on a drip and gave me fluids and medicines. I refused to eat...until Lovely Nurse Anne coaxed me into eating some food off her finger, once I had got the taste for it I managed a little more. Lovely Nurse Anne smiled alot. Meowmie came to collect me on the Sunday afternoon so I only had the one night at the Vet Place. There was one other cat in the boxes over night with me - I think he had a heart problem. He was only 4 years old.

I've been home for a day now and feel much better and am eating well. My brother Castle is hissing at me and attacking me, I guess I must have some srange smells going on. I know I have a cloud of Surgical Spirit fumes enveloping me at the moment, maybe that is what he hates.

This is me and my brother as we are normall from day to day:



My brother has a fat belly cos he steals my food that Meowmie leaves out in the hope that I will eat it, but that picture makes his tummy look particularly enormous enormous. At least he has tumy hair - I am still waiting for my hair to grow back from December!

29 Weeks on....Last Dose of Chemo!

I got to the end of my Madison Wisconsin chemo protocol today! Which means I have also made the 'median' survival rate of 6-9 months (I am almost 8 months since diagnosis). The Mad Wis protocol should only last 26 weeks but I had a hiccup with my White Blood Cells so chemo was delayed and on one another occassion the Vet Place forgot to order my chemo drugs so I had to wait an extra week.

Ben Vet told Meowmie today that he was so happy that I had made it through the Mad Wis protocol with little problems - alot of cats don't get through it, especially cats with a Large Cell lymphoma like mine. So I am doing well so far. There are some very sad stories of cats who only survive a few weeks, I have seen Meowmie reading them on her lap-telly and her eyes go wet.

Ben vet also gave Meowmie my end of protocol discharge sheet and Meowmie said that this was the first time she had seen 'clinical remission' writen down in black and white. She smiled alot, which made me purr...despite being in my box on the Vet Place reception counter top.

My treatment is to continue though...but in a milder format, it is a maintenance protocol and this is made up of taking a mild chemo drug called leukeran every 3 days (one tablet) along with my steroid every other day. I will only have to go to the Vet Place for check-ups every now and then. I'll miss Stormie's Limousine.

Penultimate dose of Chemo

Woo-hoo! Just one more chemo to go!

Went to the Vet Place this afternoon for my penultimate chemo dose...just a Vincristine, nice and easy visit. Stormie's Limousine didn't turn up AGAIN, Meowmie said something naughty and carted us both off to the bus stop - she said something about getting a reliable Limousine for me driven by someone called Lee Addison. And CAN YOU BELIEVE IT...a man on the bus asked Meowmie what I was - AGAIN! Do I not look like a cat or something? This time the person thought I was "some sort of monkey or marmoset"

Look at me, there is nothing monkey-like about me in the slightest - well, maybe my tail, but that's the only thing!