The Chemo Chronicles, Part IV: Uncharted Territory

Albuquerque, N.M., Aug. 7, 2014—Weighed down by an odd sense of trepidation and a congratulatory cake stashed in the cooler behind the seat, we drove out of Albuquerque with a weak, yet excited Henry dog, his faithful wiggly companion, Doodles, and the foreboding realization that we are now headed into unknown territory.

Like all good dogs, Henry waits patiently for permission before
attacking a cake, even if it is made especially for dogs.

After 20 weeks, Henry finally finished his last round of chemotherapy. It is a bittersweet relief. There is no doubt that the weekly treatments had been hard on him. At one point early on in his regimen, he had lost nearly 20 pounds—a quarter of his body weight—and we couldn't help but notice how, at the conclusion of each treatment, a marked lethargy and almost subliminal sadness would creep over our otherwise Gung-ho companion, leading us to question whether the monumental decision to put our six-year-old dog through an uncomfortable gauntlet of extremely costly biochemistry experiments was for his benefit or for ours?

When you can't see the forest for the trees, it's
always good to elevate your perspective to get a clear
view.

While chemotherapy has been shown to reliably poison the cancer cells within a host's body into submission—remission being the proper medical term for it—the collateral damage to the host can be monumental. The vet had told us that chemo for a dog is not nearly as horrible as chemo is for a human, but we're still not convinced. For days after each treatment, we could see real physical and emotional changes in our friend. His eyes would lose their shine, his shoulders would slump, and we could tell he had bad nausea and diarrhea. Thankfully, we noticed the latter early on, so adding some additional medications during the treatments made Henry feel better, and by the 10th week or so we were able to get the weight back on him.

 There ain't no cure for the summertime blues

As we headed into the Jemez mountains after Henry's final treatment in search of a scenic and serene spot where the doggies could enjoy the cake that the great folks at VCA Animal Hospital had given us upon Henry's "graduation" from treatment, we decided a dirt road to an unknown location would be a fitting adventure. Though 20 weeks of chemotherapy have led to "clinical remission"—no detectable cancer cells in Henry's body—there is nearly a mathematical certainty that somewhere inside Henry's 85-pound frame a lone cancer cell lurks. More than likely, there is a reservoir of such cells somewhere within his body. Like patients with HIV infections, disease cells retreat into parts of the body where they thrive despite the onslaught of therapeutic drugs. Once the chemo attack ends, the cells emerge again and begin doing their thing: reproducing and slowly robbing their host of life. Henry's cancer was extremely aggressive. If or when it returns, it probably will do so with a vengeance.

When feeling punky, it's best to go out and find flowers that are
taller than you are.

On the other hand, remission could last a year or two. Perhaps we could even see a miracle and Henry could live out the rest of his life. We just don't know, so we're treating every day as if it could be the last one for our dog. And that's not such a bad thing. I have grown convinced that dogs live their own lives with a similar spirit anyway. If you've ever seen a dog wake up after a night of sleep, you'll know what I'm talking about; they greet each new sunrise with what seems like a surprised exuberance that says, "Wow! I survived another night! How lucky I am!"

Living in the moment

 Even during the worst stretches of Chemo, Henry awoke with undiminished canine gusto. He was eager to see the sun, smell the events that had transpired during the night in our back yard, and taste his breakfast, even if it happened to be the same breakfast he's been eating over and over for six years. Dogs, it seems, rarely seem to dwell on what the future could bring, but instead live in the moment. If only we humans could embrace such unaffected appreciation of the joy of living.

Nothing beats a quiet nap in the shade.

We were winding treacherously along a steep, rocky and rutted dirt road when we saw a juvenile cougar. The beautiful cat took a moment to stare us down as we gawked. Our city dogs, hypnotized by other unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells of the wilderness, apparently did not notice the predator, or if they did, they didn't bark. Moments later, the magnificent animal slunk silently away into the trees, becoming invisible as quickly and unexpectedly as his appearance moments earlier.

At the bottom of a lush canyon, we searched in vain for a stream recorded on maps and believed by land managers to be permanent. Despite the abundant summer rains, the stream bed was dry. The waters apparently had retreated below ground and out of sight, like the bad cells inside of Henry's body had done. We took this as an auspicious sign. Drunk with the desperation that comes with terminal sickness, it's much easier to fall under the spell of magical thinking, to imbue ordinary events with meaning or to see the future in a pile of runes.

Quiet resolve

Near a field of one-eyed Susans, Henry and Doodles feasted on the cake they had been given. It was so quiet that it felt as if we were the only people in the world. The next day we found similar silence on Cat Mesa, where Henry and Doodles camped for the first time in their lives, while the heavens ramped up for the second Super Moon of summer.

Night falls on Cat Mesa and all is well with the world.

The area was eerily quiet. It was as if every other creature had retreated to make way for the namesake mountain lions that have claimed the area as their own.

A small crackling fire, hot cocoa imbued with peppermint schnapps, and a tent with some good mosquito netting made the warm evening even more comfortable. The area was so quiet that it felt as if someone had clapped their hands over both of my ears and were squeezing my skull. It was a heavy silence, but not foreboding. Caroline remarked that it was as if we had popped into a different dimension created specifically for us—one where we could ponder our place in the world without interruption.

At midnight the moon was so bright that the world was still in full color. Instead of staring at the usual gloomy grays of evening, we were seeing the vivid reds, greens and yellows of dusk. This unexpected visual acuity stood in stark contrast to the sobering silence. It was as if we were dreaming.

Inside the tent, our novice-camper dogs were of two different mindsets. Doodles immediately figured out what was going on, so she curled up in her bed instantly. Henry, on the other hand, fidgeted from place to place, finally settling upon the crevice between us. A few moments later, sleep held us all captive until sunrise.

Once the chemo wears off, it's business as usual: Tug-o-war!

In the morning, Cat Mesa was alive again with the normal sounds of the world. Although the difference between the previous day and the morning was not lost on us, we wasted no time pondering the runes that had been tossed by an unseen hand so obviously in front of us. Sometimes things just happen, I guess, and what it really boils down to is whether you trust the road that lies ahead or not. 

Despite having to clear one dead-fall along the way, we found our way out of the mountains and back home. 

See you on down the road.

The Chemo Chronicles, Part III: Getting in Hot Water and Pulling the Pinkie

Los Alamos, N.M.—We celebrated the completion of round four of Henry's five-round, 20-week chemotherapy regimen by partying on a weeknight at San Antonio Hot Springs, a wonderful oasis of geothermal activity located right in our back yard in the Jemez Mountains.

A dog wary of the hot springs

We got the idea while driving back from Henry's chemo appointment a few days earlier. The fourth round of Henry's CHOP protocol—in which one of four extremely nasty drugs that destroy cellular DNA and suppress cell division are administered each week as a way to poison Henry's cancer into submission—is extremely difficult on Henry. The inter-venous toxin can destroy normal tissue or destroy the heart muscle if administered incorrectly, so you can imagine that if it's drubbing the shit out of cancer cells within the poor dog's body, what it must be doing to his normal cells at the same time.

Nevertheless, every time Henry gets out of the car at the VCA Hospital in Albuquerque, he gets a chemo-woody. As we sat in the waiting room before his therapy, a same-sex couple fussing over a Bichon Frise with some type of oozing-eye ailment suddenly went deathly quiet. They were staring, mouths agape, at Henry, who was reclining casually with his hind legs splayed out and his fully erect pink stick poking proudly out of its fur covered scabbard. I looked at the couple and shrugged; there's a reason someone coined the expression "behaving like dogs."

The vet assistant didn't miss a beat as she came into the waiting room and efficiently took the leash from my hand and led an eager Henry off toward the therapy room.

"Looks like someone's excited for his treatment," she chirped!

Detour

Excited dogs get to ride in the cab of the
truck instead of the way back!

A few hours later, Henry came back out into the waiting room, full of poison, bonerless, and a lot more lethargic than he had been just a few hours earlier. He was weak and thirsty, and the Duke City was hotter than a dancer at TD's Show Club on a Friday night after Pay Day. We decided that a drive through the Jemez and into the cooler shadows of the pines might perk the poor boy up a little. The afternoon rains had started in earnest, and a large anvil-shaped cloud was brewing above the mountains. After detouring toward Fenton Lake—only to find the area extremely crowded and trashed out by throngs of filthy city dwellers—we took a dirt road east. After a short rest in the cool green grass of a pine meadow, we all felt better. Instead of heading straight home, however, we thought a drive down toward San Antonio Hot Springs might be in order.

A few minutes down the road, we heard a strange whoosh, as if I had gone through a shallow puddle. But the road was dry. I stopped the car and we walked back up the road to see what we might have run over. We found a few odd-looking squares of a glassy material that looked like obsidian, a black volcanic glass that can be found easily in the Jemez if you know where to look. But there was no other obsidian on the road or nearby.

The scene of the crime.

"That's odd," I muttered to myself.

Suddenly, I was struck with a realization, and a terrifying one at that. I jogged over toward the camper shell and noticed that the rear window had shattered. All of the glass, except for the few morsels we found on the road, had landed in a pile inside the camper shell. Right next to the dogs.

We panicked.

After clearing them out and checking them over for damage, we realized how lucky we had gotten. They were fine. But there sure was a lot of sharp fine glass to pick up. We did our best, but there were enough shards left over that we didn't want to put the dogs back in. We moved our gear to the back of the truck and let the dogs hang out in the access cab. It was an exciting prospect for Henry's little friend, Doodles, who excitedly looked out the window as we drove. Henry settled in for a nap. A little ways down the road, we met a gate. The driving part of our journey was over. We walked a ways down the road past the gate and toward the hot springs, but we realized that the springs were still a ways away. It was late in the day, so we turned around, loaded up and made our way home.

Partying on a school night

You should play with a big, pink rubber
bone every chance you get.

But the thought of soaking in the warm waters of San Antonio hot springs beckoned us for the next few days, haunting our sleep and our daily conversation. I hadn't taken a dip in the those magical waters since my college days. We decided to head up after work mid-week. A steady drizzle and an American culture conditioned not to pursue leisure activities (other than drinking in bars or pubs, which is totally culturally accepted) after work ensured that we'd have the place to ourselves.

Sure enough, we were right. We doffed our clothes, giggled and jumped in the nice hot pool just as the sun disappeared over the ridge. The dogs were intrigued by the spectacle. Henry put his paws in the warm water and quickly retreated. He took a short taste. Disgusted and confused, the dogs stayed at bay while we soaked under the relentless rain.

As we drove home, the excitement in the vehicle was palpable. It had been another big adventure for a dog whose days are numbered. The nearly full moon was waxing into Super Moon status, so the woods were bright enough to navigate without headlights. 

When it's all said and done, a dog can
never get too much love—even if that dog
happens to be a hamburger thief.

 Spoiling the dog

Henry's lymphoma has gone into complete remission, and we've been trying to spoil him in a good way by taking him on adventures, giving him lots of pets and conversation, and surprising him with unexpected culinary delights.

He seems to have gotten used to the latter, because a few days after returning from our hot springs soak and in the company of dinner guests, Henry decided to help himself to an extra homemade cheeseburger that was up on the counter waiting to be claimed. Our dinner party guests spoke too late for a second burger, because before we knew it, Henry had put his paws on the counter—a stunt he's never pulled before—and gobbled down the cheeseburger before we could holler, "No!" (Early on, the vet had warned us that prednisone can give a dog an insatiable appetite that can inspire bad behavior, but Henry has always been a compliant little fellow, so we had been unconcerned about such things during the first 16 weeks of treatment.)

As we looked at him sternly, we could see a little smile creep across his face. He must have thought, "you won't do anything to me because I have cancer." He is a smart dog.

Shortly after the hamburglary, we were out playing tug of war with a ridiculous pink bone. Life is good for Henry right now and I suddenly understand why going to the vet gives him a boner. I guess I'd have one, too, if I felt as good after being on Death's doorstep.

See you on down the road!