Max has been very sleepy ... I mean VERY sleepy, especially until about Dinner time.. and then he's bouncing everywhere.  We don't know exactly what's going on in his head, but I've seen him get a little wobbly - like he's drunk, but his eyes aren't spinning, but when he sleeps he's been sleeping deeply. His hearing seems to be back - when he's awake!  Yesterday at the vet, I had him off leash in the parking lot and he decided to keep walking down the side walk towards the field. He got about 75 yards from me and I called him and he turned around, so I think his hearing is working pretty well.  His eye looks a little better. He is starting to produce his own tears and it is back to looking more glassy with the moisture in there, but under there's still some gunk going on. He goes back in a couple of weeks to get re-checked. It's not even been a week since he was at the eye doctor so I guess we are happy that his eye is looking better. This morning it just looked very cloudy. He has been rubbing at it.  The indentation in his forehead above his right eye seems to be doing better as well. Tomorrow will be 5 weeks from his last cyberknife treatment or 1 month and 1 week... I can't wait until it's many months!  and then years!

Yesterday we had a visit from a big hound dog named Summer who is a 9 month old puppy! She ran in the front yard with #2 and Max came out to say hi. They sniffed each other pretty well.. I mentioned that Max probably smells like prednisone a bit and turned out Summer was on it too for another issue - maybe they were happy to smell someone who smells like them. Anyway - Max just sat on the Stoop and Summer came up to check on him. He told her the rules, because he's always been known as the "Fun Police" and she listened! Pretty good for a puppy huh?!

Speaking of Smells, Max's mouth smells like sewage. I know in Chinese Medicine different odors coming from the body indicate different diseases and illnesses.. I dont think this is the same kidney or liver smell our golden had (It doesn't smell like kidneys or liver - but a kind of foul stink, but I'm thinking we may want to run some blood work to double check. He's been through a lot and you never know what his systems are doing.

The other thing I noticed was he has some dark pigmentation on his back ankles where they shaved him for his catheter. It almost looks like dirty skin  -not sure it's bruising, but it suddenly appeared yesterday. I noticed while were were visiting Dr. Lord and she had another vet from DC with her who so he had 2 vets look at it and they didn't think it was much, but it's different and has me concerned.

Max's Eye 10-30-11

Max's right eye (on your left) has a bulging pink thing

Closer look at the pussy ping swelling on Max's eye

I know it's been a while since I updated Max's blog. The good news is he's doing fantastic!
To follow up on his eye situation, I took him to the eye doctor on Fri. (Did you know you can't call an eye doctor down here directly and make an appointment? You need to go to get your regular vet to refer you?) Anyway, the eye doctor took a look at his eye and stuck some strips of paper in his eye and then showed me how much moisture came out of each eye. The good eye - his left eye read 18 and the bad eye read 8.  He pointed out when your eye hurts you usually produce more tears but in Max's case he was producing less. He then told me that with any kind of radiation they commonly see "dry eye" as he put it, and the tear glands dry up or stop working. He said the fact that Max had radiation on his head makes him 99% sure that that is what is going on. Where Max has the attrophe above his right eye, is where he said the tear glands are generally found. He looked at a few more things and then said, "yup that's it. Dry eye."
I then got a quick lesson on the irrigation system of the eye and he told me that because Max's eye was dry, the abraision from when he fell wasn't able to heal because the surface of his cornea was dry and bumpy vs. smooth and lubricated.

The end result is that Max was prescribed eye drops that he gets 3 times a day and an ointment that has some antibiotic and bacterial properties as well as anti-swelling properties that he gets 2 times a day.  He said in a few days his eye would start to look better but it would be a while until it was back to normal, but it should go back to normal, and wanted to see him again in 3-4 weeks.

It's been 2.5 days and I'm starting to see his eye being a little more clear and definitely more lubricated. He's started to rub his eye after I put the ointment in but all in all he's tolerating it pretty well. I also think he's starting to be able to see a little better as of tonight.

As for Max's over all progress, he is doing FANTASTIC!  He's had a ton of energy, he's no longer super lethargic, in fact I think he's been getting bored hanging out at home so much. This morning I took him and his brother Buster up to the park to see how he'd do and he walked a good 3/4 of a mile and was ready to keep going! We explored the playground, he stuck his head in a bush and apparently caught the scent of some critter, but I thought it wasn't a good place for his eye so we had a little battle of wills to get his head out of the bush, then he discovered where the park workers had tossed bread on the ground for the birds and deer and he and Buster tried to gobble up as much as possible (nope.. that's not on his diet at all). Then he decided he wanted to walk the mile path down to the water. We got about 1/4 of the way down there and I decided that wasn't going to be a good idea, just in case something happened. So.. we wandered around the field, sniffed for critters (yet managed to avoid the possum arm that some other larger critter had ripped off and left in the field - yes kind of gross and I feel bad for the possum, but also am a little worried about what critter in the woods down the road is ripping arms out of possum).

Friday after Max's eye appointment we took a pitstop at PetCo (where the pets go) and Max was very excited to explore and search for fallen food, and play with the critters behind the glass (fish, ferrets, guineapigs, mice). He had a very active day and did really well!

He also can hear, all be it selective hearing, he definitely can hear when he wants to. I also caught him attempting to climb up on the kitchen table to finish off my salad a little while ago. We've reduced his prednisone down to 10mg  every other day (we did increase it back up to every day early last week because he had started to lose his hearing again).  Max is back to leading the barking when someone comes home, or there's someone out front and he sees or hears them. 

This AM found Max on top of my bed, and then the counter helping himself to some cat food... I managed to catch the tail end of the mayhem at hour house when the garbage trucks come.. He's right there with the rest of the pack barking at them!

Max's quivering eye. 10-23-11

This is a video of Max's right eye twitching. I don't know if it's anything to be alarmed about, but it doesn't seem normal. His hearing is back so that's improvement, but this eye lid is twitching if you watch the eye lash line.. Almost like his eye lashes are vibrating back and forth. This video was taken right after Max sprinted (I'm not kidding) from one side of the house to the other and ran around the house barking because I had just pulled in the driveway. It clearly doesn't bother him.. or Cat food in the cat bed is just too much to resist.  Incidentally, it's only vibrating on his right eye. This is the eye he fell on in the driveway and got gravel on before he went up for CK so it may be related to that.. I'm just not sure.

His energy level has been high all day. (Temps outside are in the high 50's low 60's - it finally cooled off and fall is here) He's been very alert all day and again, he can hear again today.   I'm not sure if this is how recovery goes from CK... I guess it's possible that the tumors can be reabsorbed in different areas and maybe push and swell in others?  I wish we were closer to the neurologist!

10-23-11 Max goes for a walk

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, Max had regained his hearing after Cyberknife for a week or so and as we reduced his prednisone dose his hearing started to disappear. I emailed with his neurologist about this and he suggested that we not lower his dose any further than 10mg every other day and if I saw any other signs or symptoms of brain swell to bump his dose up to the previous level.

Max takes the lead on our walk!

I thought that since he used to be able to hear I'd like to see if keeping him on 10mg / day would help him regain his hearing.. Well.. it took about 3 days but he can hear again.  He has a follow up appointment scheduled for Nov 1.

Another thing that I've noticed with Max is that he is interacting more! He started interacting more even with the reduced prednisone level, so I think he's feeling better overall.

Sniffing logs and seeing who's been there before!

Today when I pulled out the leashes Max came over and wagged his tail and wanted his collar put on. Then he actually went to the car and wanted to get inside to go to the park and go for a walk!  When we got to the park he jumped right up in the car and even wanted to jump out of the back of the car on his own!  He immediately left his mark on a tree and then took the short cut through some bushes to the path in the woods. He stood there for a few seconds to decide which way to go and then led the other 2 dogs into the woods for a walk!  He stopped to sniff, left

Wait a second.. the world is spinning!

 his mark and was trying to lead everyone while I was trying to keep everyone going at a snails pace. I didn't want him to over do it.  After a few minutes he stopped and stood still for a bit, then kept going and went and sniffed a few things.. then stopped again while everyone used a tree to mark. I went over to snap a few photos of his face and noticed (at least) his right eye was circling a bit. I hadn't seen this in a LONG time. His eye brows were fine, no twitching - but he definitely had the spins.  I let him stay still for a bit and he just lay down. I let him lie down for a

Max's right eye was vibrating

couple of minutes and then decided it was probably a better idea to pick him up and bring him home and get him his prednisone dose for the day (he was due in an hour and a half anyway).  He lay down in the car, got up, looked for water, and lay down. When we got home, he immediately jumped up and wanted to jump out of the car!  I didn't let him. His eye had stopped spinning, but he still got his dose of prednisone anyway and I let him rest. Any time the other dogs would bark at deer or other dogs in the neighborhood he'd jump up too and run to the door to see what was going on (hearing is definitely back!)

Max needed a little rest.

We can always second guess ourselves - maybe it was the car ride that got him dizzy, or he hasn't done too much quick movement in a while so that made him dizzy, or he pushed it trying to be the leader. I didn't really give him a lot of time to try and recover and "see what happens next" before I scooped him up and we came home.  Better safe than sorry.   We'll probably try again another day

The Spring Is Back!

Max has his spring back in his step!  We went out to run errands and came home with a few toys for the dogs.. some stuffed animals to shred, a few squeaky balls and a laser pointer (sorry Buster, no treats).  Max actually grabbed one of the stuffed animals and pulled it away, and then saw the laser pointer!  He hasn't played in over a month and a half at least!  This is great!

Dr. Burzynski - The Movie

I thought it might be important to post information about what Dr. Burzynski is doing. While Dr. Burzynski works specifically on humans, what he does can be applied to dogs. Unfortunately we need research facilities to research the correct numbers of different and normal levels of specific proteins / antiplasteons in each breed of dog. I have had the pleasure of speaking directly with Dr. Burzynski with our veterinary oncologist about this. If anyone is interested in helping please let me know!  This would be an amazing advance in the veterinary world.. wouldn't it?!  

This is an AMAZING VIDEO please watch!

Dr. Burzynski - The Movie

www.burzynskipatientgroup.org/

www.burzynskiclinic.com/patient-stories.html