Tag: dogs

Dogs, Enzymes, and a Conspiracy Theorist

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For the three weeks after my second immunology treatment, things were going pretty well. With few side effects, my dog-sitting sister and I decided I could probably try having my furry friends back home. For the past two months I’d wanted to be able to focus on my own health (as a reminder, Jazz has diabetes which requires insulin shots twice a day and has cataracts making her almost blind.)  But of course, I missed them so on Wednesday evening, March 17th they were chauffeured back home from Pickering. They were certainly as excited to see/smell me as I was to have them back for cuddles!

This was the day after treatment number 3 and on Friday I went for the usual blood lab check and doctor consultation to make sure everything was as it should be.  But of course, it wasn’t!

“I’m sorry to tell you that your liver enzymes have skyrocketed and we’ll need to admit you to the hospital immediately so we can give you intravenous steroids to start bringing the enzymes down. I’ll be right back but I’m afraid you’ll need to make arrangements for your dogs again.”

I’d mentioned the dogs coming home to him at my Monday appointment earlier in the week and he remembered LOL. Luckily Sue made it clear that if for any reason keeping them was an issue, they’d be happy to have them back so after less than 48 hours they were back in Pickering and I’d been admitted as an inpatient to Toronto General. I did get taken from Princess Margaret to TGH via the tunnel under University Ave which was kinda cool.

Looking East from my TGH room at night.

I didn’t actually have any real side effects at this point so after getting pumped with the steroid each morning, I’d go for a walk in the afternoon if the weather was nice. One day around hospital row, another day up to the University of Toronto, and another down to my old – and no longer going to be new – office at 400 University Avenue. There Emma, Ian and some others were struggling to get the space ready for the division’s “return to work” future. Was certainly nice to chat with some familiar faces.

Being able to get out and about also allowed me to get some respite from “conspiracy theorist guy” (CTG). In a room that eventually had five beds filled (things were still pretty tight in the hospital for both beds and staff) I was lucky enough to get a window that even had a reasonable view.  But of course, the beds are only separated by thin curtains and for four of the five days I was there, CTG was on his phone explaining global child sacrifices being made by the world’s elite, Trudeau wanting to murder everyone, Hilary Clinton’s pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza place, chips in the vaccine and all the forces against him in making some hemp business succeed.

Oh and all the people that were helping him cure his cancer with treatments that were clearly outside anything that was generally accepted by the medical world at the moment. I mean I suppose it’s not completely impossible my oncologists were purposely leading me astray because of big pharma…but I really wasn’t convinced.  That’s despite listening to him about 18 hours a day on his cell phone – even my earbuds couldn’t block him out 😦

When they figured I was ready to just take an oral dose of the steroid, they were ready to send me home but on my last day, they also scheduled a CT scan. The results were pretty positive. All the tumours and lesions had shrunk – some as much as 50% – so it proved that so far at least, the radiation and three combination immunotherapy doses had been doing what they were supposed to. And although I have to be weaned off the steroid before we can do any more treatments, the earlier treatments will continue to have an effect on the cancer cells while that happens.  So getting that news was definitely worth 4 days of listening to CTG.

The steroid is slowly bringing down the liver enzymes but the side effects of fatigue and weakness and swollen feet are definitely more pronounced. So they gave me another med to counter the side effects of the steroid – we’ll see how that works out <chuckle>. And now that the weather is nicer – well at least above freezing most days – it’s harder to find an excuse NOT to go for walk I guess LOL.

Lastly, this past weekend my sisters were again kind enough to both take me to and from Brighton to visit my parents. They were going anyway but still had to go out of their way to my place. And the dogs went too so I did get another two days of cuddle therapy which can never be a bad thing! And when I got dropped off at home again, and as much as they are very well cared for by my sister’s family, I’m pretty sure they wanted to come in and stay with me 😉

The Walk

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As many of you will know, I have two miniature schnauzers – Jazz now 12 and Apollo 11. They are sister and brother although obviously from different litters. Many of my work colleagues will remember them for their monthly Friday visits to the office many years ago.

Having to walk them three times a day, especially during COVID work from home (since March 2020!) has been a life saver in terms of getting some exercise. In the summer of 2020 Jazz was diagnosed with diabetes, which on its own is quite treatable with insulin shots twice a day. Unfortunately by the fall she had developed cataracts which are a common result of the diabetes, and lost a large amount of her sight.  That said she has been amazingly resilient and adaptable. It does mean however its a struggle to walk them together anymore and her own walks are slower and shorter as one might expect. She still knows where she wants to go though!

On Wednesday December 15th, I had finished walking Apollo around Bishop Strachan School, when I tripped on the sidewalk in front of Grace Church on the Hill, landing with 225 lbs on my left ribs – with just a little padding from my parka. Luckily Apollo scrambled out of the landing zone in time!  Now my past experiences with trips and falls in public, usually followed a very embarrassing look around to see who saw you fall and a quick as possible jump up to prove it was really nothing to worry about – I’m sure many of you can relate lol.  In this case though, I’d really knocked the wind out so just needed to catch my breath when a very well meaning gentleman rush over while talking on his cell phone and insisted on helping my up. In retrospect I imagine it was a rather comical scene – him chatting to me and his cell phone almost at the same time, me trying to catch my breath and grab Apollo’s leash (he was actually just sitting quite still watching me) and eventually accepting the help up.

We were only about 200 m from my apartment so figured I’d just walk it off and headed home. As the day wore on though, the pain increased in my left rib cage and clearly some pulled muscles in my lower back. I debated whether I should go to the ER for x-rays on my ribs – at the best of times our ERs are over crowded and while the OMICRON variant was just ramping up, the health care system has been stretched for almost two years at that point and I really didn’t want to be needlessly clogging up the ER.  Eventually though I hailed a cab and headed to the ER at Toronto General Hospital. Perhaps because it was later in the evening, it was not as busy as expected, and after a couple of hours and an x-ray, was told that my ribs were not broken or fractured. I was given a prescription for some Tylenol 2’s and sent on my way. I walked to the Queen’s Park subway station and headed home.

As I came out of St Clair West subway and regained cell reception, the was a message for me, saying they had also spotted a new “ovoid mass” in the right lower lobe of my lung and that further scans with CT were required. I was asked to come back the next day so they could do further assessments.  While clearly not a message I wanted to hear, there was really not enough information to start worrying about.

I was also relieved I’m made the decision to get the x-ray even though it would begin a journey I’d never really anticipated.