Bone Cancer and Chemo- Would you consider it for your pet?

I wanted to share these photos from last week, and ask a question concerning chemotherapy in pets.

First on a happy note, Look who returned this week for their puppy vaccination.
Cujo. Can you tell he's growing from the photo? The first photo is from 4 weeks ago. The second one is from last Monday.






Now, here's my question. Last week I had to euthanize a 9 1/2 year old German Shepherd patient with bone cancer in her forelimb. She weighed over 100 lbs. 10 years old for a dog that big is about the human equivalent of 78 years old. Just for reference.

She was lame last December. We put her on arhritis medications for a few days-weeks, but that didn't seem to give her much relief. So we shot a radiograph (an x-ray). You could see areas of bone missing, which puts bone cancer on top of the list of possibilities. There was a little swelling around her joint but not terribly noticeable.

So, I sent her and rads to an orthopedic surgeon, since they deal with these cases more than I do . She needed a bone biopsy to confirm the lesion as osteosarcoma, but since the prognosis wasn't very good, her owners decided to try and make her comfortable for as long as possible.

This were their options for patients with osteosarcoma-
Amputation alone has a median survival time of 3-4 months.
Amputation and cisplatin (chemo) have a median survival time of 260 to 400 days. The 1 year survival range is 38% to 62%.

For a human, that doesn't sound like very long. For a large dog, a year is relatively longer in time reference.

J had been on narcotic pain meds but last week they noticed she seemed more uncomfortable and having way more diffuculty getting around.

I will say this though- I initially wasn't sure how well a 110lb. dog would be able to get around with missing a front leg. The orthopedic surgeon said that they do well since they are already accustomed to walking on 3 legs by avoiding weight bearing on the affected limb.

Here are photos I took of her leg last week. I had not seen J in several months and was expecting the tumor to be larger. There probably was also some metastasis to her lungs, which were still clear on radiographs back in January.


So my question is this. What would you have done? Knowing now that she made it almost a year, without surgery and without chemo, would you have done things differently?

Some owners might not be able to afford surgery, hospitalization, labwork and chemotherapy.
Chemo costs more in big dogs, than little dogs, as the drugs are dosed by weight.

In J's case, I think it was a little of it all- the poor prognosis, the expense, and not wanting to put her through all that.

Years ago, I had another German Shepherd who had lymphosarcoma. She did go through Chemotherapy over 12-15 weeks, and did quite well. She stayed in remission for about a year, and then when the cancer returned her owners opted to euthanize her too. But that is about the extent of practical experience I've had with chemotherapy.

Have any of you had a pet go through Chemotherapy? How did it go? Would you do it again, in hindsight?

Artists-Collective- Our first Issuu Issue

Many of you know that a few artists and myself have been advertising in a national art magazine over the past year. We have a new ad coming up in November and we are debuting our first online issue. It was a "little" time consuming to set up the first one, and I am sure I have lots of grammatical errors in it, but it's done, and you get to see it first.


Click on the mini-viewer and you will go to the page. Click on full-screen and you should be able to view it without zooming in and out.

Get your own - Open publication

Enjoy.
If you like what you see, please leave a comment or rate it. I also invite you to leave suggestions or ideas for future issues.

Ellie- Homeless to Happy in less than 7 days

Hello everyone-
As you can see I've been neglecting my blog this week. I wanted to share these photos I snapped today. Some are blurry, I apologize for that. I suspect my digital camera gets lazy about focusing when the batteries get low.

First, remember TarBaby? The 10 year old cat stranded here when her owner had to move to a care facility? And then the couple who purchased the house was going to adopt her and let her move back to "her" house?
Sadly, that all fell through. She's still homeless.


and then you'll recognize Sunshine. Who is "affectionately" referred to, by Maybelline, as the Devil.

Roxie came in for her last puppy shot.


and here's Ellie.


She came in last Monday, looking "possibly with children", sort of wormy, etc. She showed up at the client's house over the weekend.


these photos were taken today so she's looking better. On Wednesday of last week she got spayed, and was in today to get the staples out and get a bath.

She would have had 10 puppies before Thanksgiving.

Such a sweet dog, with a sweet personality.



Notice her bottom jaw? Her right side, the left side of your monitor.

Not ever so long ago, her mandible was fractured on that side. It healed but it's a little displaced.




There isn't much can be done with it now. It's healed. But that must have been really, really uncomfortable trying to eat for several weeks while it healed.

Next week or so, she's back to be treated for heartworms.

Remember to spay and neuter those pets. There are enough Ellie Maes (I am certain her middle name is Mae. We are in the South, afterall) running around as it is.

Little Pumpkins- on Yupo

Here's my painting of this weeks subject at Karin Jurick's Different Strokes blog.

Pumpkins I think are easier to paint if they are orange, 'cause with white ones you have all this color bouncing around from other objects and background. I did underpaint a few areas with fluid acrylics since I didn't want those glazes to move, with watercolor on top.

Not quite realistic values, but there are some interesting bleeds and subtle color blends that you probably can't see on the monitor.

Three Little Pumpkins, 5x7 image size.




Have a nice weekend, everyone.

Cujo- Parvo Puppy here this past Weekend

Meet Cujo. Careful, he's ferocious.

Cujo came in Friday night, when the phone rang about 7 pm. (We close at 6) . So here I have this puppy several weeks old, literally skin and bones, depressed, not eating, vomiting, and diarrhea.


No puppy shots. Fecal- loaded with hookworms and whipworms. It's unusual to see whips in a puppy this young. The parvo test turns bright blue- much like a pregnancy test.

So he start treatment- Tamiflu (which isn't cheap, but seems to help to prevent secondary septicemia) , antibiotic injections, fluids, dewormer.


We were a little chilled so we dragged out the heat lamp. Aaahh- much better.

By Monday morning (yesterday) we started eating a little on his own and keeping it down. Feeling a little better, wagging his tail a little when you woke him up from his naps.
So he got a bath and sent home late yesterday afternoon with his Tamiflu and a few more days of antibiotics.




Cujo says to tell everyone to get those puppy vaccines, because Tamiflu does not taste like candy.

Man on a Park Bench- this Week's Subject

for Different Strokes blog. Neat to see the different versions. Varnished Watercolor on Yupo board , 5x7 inches.

$95, plus $6 for shipping.

there seems to be a problem with the paypal button at the moment. It is giving an error message. Contact me via email if interested. Thanks.

Bella- The interesting Case of the Week

This is Bella. A 6 month old French Bulldog that came in Wednesday. She had been spayed at another vet hospital on Tuesday. (gasp! I know). And was having all kinds of problems with diarrhea and pooping all over the house after surgery. So her owner decided to board her to see if I could get the diarrhea to clear up.

Cute isn't she? Is this a face only a mom could love?

Notice anything different? I know she looks like she might pop out an eyeball at any point, in the photo below, but that isn't it.


She has a cleft lip on both sides. Not a cleft palate. Her palate appears to be intact. Her lips under her nose didn't fuse correctly.


Cool, huh?
It doesn't affect her eating or anything. Her diarrhea is a little better today, she finished her medication, so she'll probably go home late this afternoon.

The view is so much better up here. . . .

IMG_1730
Originally uploaded by steb

I was browsing photos at flickr, looking for cats sitting on a park bench, and came across this.

Flickr is great.

Click on the image, go to flickr, and you can view the large size from there.

Atlanta Fall Gift Show- AmericasMart

Well, I am back from the Atlanta Fall Gift Show. I haven't done the Americasmart wholesale Gift Show since way back in 2002, although I often attend the Jan or July one for the day to visit the showrooms, see what products they are showing, to scout for potential licensees.
Below is a photo of my booth.



Here's the view from the other angle. Notice the big red arrows pointing to something blocking the view. This is what attendees saw if the happen to be coming down the aisle. An import company from Brazil hung 3 rather large pressed paper plates on the pole dividing the booth. 98% of the time, they stayed on my side of the curtain. I wanted to hang prints on them, since technically I was paying for the space.


In January, I am showing in the licensing and design section with Atlanta Art Licensing Group.

Phyllis Dobbs, Brenda Pinnick, and Stella Violano were attending the show. Stella had never been to Americasmart. She was elated to discover Chick-fil-A, since they don't have those in California apparently.

A Portrait of Jack

Karin Jurick from Decatur, who paints fantastic people and cityscapes, posted on her blog about her dog Jack, who had brain cancer and had to be put to sleep. She started a project on another blog, posting a picture each week for people to paint. A photo of Jack was the first subject. You can see all the interpretations so far at that blog- differentstrokesfromdifferentfolks.blogspot.com (Sorry I had the link wrong, the first time.)

Here's my interpretation. Varnished watercolor on Yupo board, 5x7 inches. Unframed. I'll list the painting for sale with 20% of the proceeds going to Old Dog Haven, in Jack's memory. $95 plus $6 for shipping. You can find either a google checkout, or paypal button at the bottom of the post.


Check out that cool little spidery bleed. I had to leave it in.

SOLD. I thank you, Old Dog Haven thanks you, and Jack's family thanks you too.

Edit- 10:30 pm- I am so sorry, it seems this post went out again, when added the paypal buttons. My apologies for all those who received this post twice. Blogger used to not send out an edited post.