How does the garden begin...

Saturday was such a beautiful day that we decided it was time to get busy in the garden, as it was still under all of the fall leaves that had protected it over the winter.

Bill got out the tiller and got it going and did his thing.



In the mean time, I decided the the trellis for the peas would be natural and I had just read an article talking about using apple tree branches for the trellis. We just happened to have an apple tree and a few branches that we cut off last weekend, so off to the burn pile I went. When I was finished, here was my prize:



Without a true plan in mind we began the process of creating "teepee's that we hope will become a trellis for the garden.



the plan is to grow peas on the four legged trellis' and as the peas go away, we are going to try and grow squash on the trellis. The three legged trellis will be used to grow beans.

Who knows if it will work or not, but it will be fun to try. We are even going to try and plant the seeds in stages to spread out the crop. We'll see if any of it will happen, but it will be fun to try.

Happy Gardening!

Buddy's final radiation treatment

Today Bill & I took Buddy to see Dr. Cyman for his final radiation treatment. Dr. Cyman came out and told us what to watch for as his disease progresses.

While we had the opportunity, Bill asked her a question about the safety of her job and the radiation and the "vault" as she called it. It was quite an education, most of it was over my head, but I can say that the "vault" where the treatment occurs has concrete walls 3 feet thick, and a 10,000 pound lead door. She said that they "over shielded" the "vault" for safety purposes.

It was quite an education that I never wanted.

On Thursday, Buddy starts the vaccine for melanoma. It is a series of 4 shots ever other week. Then a booster at 6 months.

We'll see how that goes, and will be switching back to Dr. Freeman.

Buddy is in good spirits and Mom is spoiling him rotten.

And the treatments begin....

Buddy’s schedule of radiation treatments were Friday Feb 19, Monday, Thursday, Monday, Thursday and the final treatment scheduled for Monday March 8.

According to all discussions, dogs do not have the same types of side effects as people do, but they do have side effects. Due to the melanoma being in his mouth, they were treating his mouth, plus the lymph nodes on his neck. The side effects are a tender mouth and throat.

Some of the other interesting items have been that Dr. Freeman had us start giving him fish oil pills as they are very good for cancer patients, and suggested that rather than the chicken and rice that has been added to his dinner, we drop the rice and increase the protein. Dr. Cyman also suggested a high protein low carb diet, and recommended a couple different brands of dry food. We ended up selecting EVO. He is now eating their turkey/chicken kibble and we are also using the same brand of biscuits and alternate between the turkey/chicken and red meat treats.

On March 1st Buddy started showing signs of side effects. The Dr said this was right on schedule. While he appeared to be hungry and thirsty he would only pick at both food and water and he started drooling. His reactions made us think of a severe sore throat. Dr. Cyman started him on some pain medication to help through this period. She also pushed his Thursday appointment out to Friday to give his body a chance to recover a bit more.

During this period either my brother Bob or Bill transported Buddy to his appointment. On Monday, March 8, I will be also going to the appointment so that I can learn about what happens now.

Sometimes when it rains…..

it absolutely pours.

The holidays were hectic, January wasn't much better but we figured that things would begin to quiet down a bit in February.

We were sadly mistaken. On Saturday, January 30th we took Buddy in to see his Dr. for an old dog check-up to make sure all was ok, with the plan of having his teeth cleaned. When his Dr Laborde checked his mouth, she found a tumor growing that we had not noticed, and she thought it could be melanoma. His blood work came back the next day and was a total mess which resulted in another trip to the vet to check his blood pressure and his clotting to make sure that he could have surgery to remove the tumor.

The following Saturday Buddy made another trip to the vet to have the tumor removed. He came through the surgery really well, which was great, but it was only the beginning.

Three days later the biopsy results came back and the tumor was an aggressive form of cancer, and we were given several options to think about....surgery, oncologist, do nothing....

We had a family discussion and I was on the phone with the Oncologist later that day so that we could here all of the available options.

So on Thursday after his Saturday surgery Buddy and I found ourselves at a Cancer Clinic within the Dove Lewis Clinic seeing an Oncologist for a consultation.

Dr Freeman did the exam and gave us a list of options: 1. surgery, 2. chemo, 3. radiation, 4. melanoma vaccine. To start the process of knowing where we were, she did an aspiration of the lymph nodes a chest x-rays and the other problem was that the biopsy did not have a specific cancer diagnosis and we had to send it off to TX to determine exactly what we were dealing with. All of this takes time.

On Friday Dr. Freeman called and said no sign of spreading in the lymph nodes, nor the lungs, so now we wait for the biopsy results

On Wednesday while out for my lunchtime walk, I received a phone call from Dr. Freeman. The diagnosis was oral melanoma and an aggressive form. She recommended that we go to another oncologist over in Beaverton, Dr. Cyman for a consultation for radiation, and that I needed to move immediately because the clinic was scheduled to close in a couple of weeks. Good thing for lunch hours, by time I got back to the office Buddy was scheduled the following day for another consultation with Dr. Cyman. More scrambling and my brother Bob was enlisted in the process, so he drove from Seaside to Sandy, picked up Buddy and drove him to Beaverton and I met them at the clinic.

Dr. Cyman examined Buddy and her recommendation was radiation, and she wanted to start the next day (Friday) for six treatments