betsy

I need advice.

I have a chemo appointment scheduled for my cat (yes, I know I am posting to
two dog NGs) on Friday.

She had a radical lateral mastectomy on Wed. September 17. Her incision
from the first surgery several weeks before that was slow to heal and this
incision is too. I've removed about 30 of the stitches for her comfort, but
at least 15 are not ready to come out. That area still has open wounds and
red crusts instead of brown. She's on clavamox and a topical antibiotic
ointment, and I have devised a sweater for her out of nylon tights that I
change daily in order to keep her from licking or scratching the wounds
open.

In addition, she picked up the sniffles from somewhere, and is still
congested. She does not have colored mucus, only clear.

Do those of you with experience in chemo (ESPECIALLY VETS OR TECHS)
recommend she needs to defer her first chemo treatment?

I called her oncologist and she told me basically that if she was better it
would be fine. But I don't know how much better she needs to be, or what
the risk is if she is not better. And I'm concerned about the possibility
of chemo interfering with the closure of the wound.

HELP please!

gwen watson

I have been told by several Vets recently to be giving my dogs
Vitamin C and Vitamin E to boost their immune systems.

This may be something you may want to ask this
Vet or you may want to make an appointment
with Holistic Vet before the treatment to talk
about supplements, vitamins and change in food
that may help with boosting the immune system.

One of the concerns with Chemo treatment is how it
affects the immune system.

Please do realize though that animal chemo or their reaction
to chemo treatment is nothing like human.

I hope for the best for you kitty.

Gwen

lisa belec

My dog and my sister's dog both went through chemo....they always did
blood work before a treatment and if the white cell counts were too low,
they deferred treatment. In the dogs' cases, if the WBCs were low, it
was generally as a result of the chemo. I seem to remember that if the
WBCs were high because of an infection they'd also defer treatment and
treat the infection first. I think that as long as the animal is
"stable", they'd prefer to get any non-cancer stuff dealt with first....

Good luck -

2 smelly dogs

Our dog Oliver is in the midst of chemo now. He's at the point where he
takes antibiotics daily because after 6 months of chemo he is quite
prone to a variety of infections. The most important thing is to try to
stay on schedule with the chemo as cancer is a progressive disease.

We started chemo right after major surgery on his muzzle and nose while
he was still healing and still had some swelling, draining and stitches.
It was slow going and there were some difficult times but the cancer is
what we're all most afraid of so we tried to move quickly as possible.

If I can offer you any advice it would be to keep the area as clean as
possible where she spends the most time. I'd ask my vet about how to
keep the lesion/s clean and if it's doable to remove the sweater, do so
to let the air dry out the wound. Could you make a second one so you
can wash and sterilize them? (this is assuming you can remove it with no
harm).

You can counter the imbalance of antibiotics with probiotics like yogurt
or acidobacillus (sp?). I tried to avoid using them so frequently, but
Ollie came down with a serious urinary infection that progressed very
quickly and later he had couple of skin infections. You'll find that
the blood workups are really helpful in preventing major infections from
setting in, by addressing raised white blood count levels immediately.
We're always battling infection - the downside of chemo.