Charlee, Chemo, and The Final Round
Yesterday, June 14th, we checked into the hospital in Medford to begin Miles’s FINAL round of chemo. Before departing Miles was able to get cheers from our awesome crew of contractor/builders, a hug from his brother, love from dad, and of course many cuddles from his dog Charlee - who stood with Bradley and faithfully watched us leave.
From the moment Miles met Charlee at only a few weeks old it was mutual love at first sight. Miles doesn’t ever really complain about feeling crappy - he’s a tough warrior. We will often have to ask him in order to validate what we think he’s going through. But not Charlee - she just simply knows and then she’s there - right by his side. Every time he gets sick, every time he’s spiked a fever, every time he’s been silently battling - she just shows up.
I think we can all attest to the loyalty of dogs - but researchers at the University of Lincoln, UK, found that dogs, “can recognize emotions in humans by combining information from different senses.” Dogs recognize when you're sad or in pain by facial recognition and body language, but the most interesting sense they use is smell.
During the last week of each round of chemo, after the neutropenia, after the sickness, after the counts come up - Miles has usually had 4-5 days of feeling great. Last week - when Miles was feeling up - Charlee had four seizures. Luckily due to circumstances - Miles did not witness any of them. They were absolutely heart wrenching to watch. After the 4th seizure at 3:30am Bradley rushed her up to Medford to the 24 hour clinic.
They monitored her for 12 hours, did imaging, gave fluids, performed bloodwork. Everything came back fine and she didn’t have any further seizures. Bradley drove back north to pick her up. On his way home he called me and asked me to look up the side effects of a dog ingesting the Vinca plant. This ground cover grows all over around our new home and during the dirt work Bradley had “pulled out” quite a bit of the plant - leaving loose ends for any unknowing animal to chew on.
Turns out - Vinca causes seizures if ingested.
But wait - for the plot twist. . .
Vinca is also “milked” and used as one of the ingredients to make Vincristine - the chemo that is supposed to be the “easy” one for kids - but one that has always made Miles the sickest. He received Vincristine once a week in Seattle and we wouldn’t even get back to the house before he was violently ill. He gets it now on day seven of every cycle and it makes him so sick that he now gets additional IV meds to prevent the ugliness of the “easy chemo”.
It may sound crazy - but we think this extraordinary dog chose to do a little research of her own in order to validate her unwavering empathy by “putting herself” in Miles’s shoes -and taking a little of the “easy chemo” herself.
We are very relieved that she is totally fine now and we appreciate her loyalty - but next time she wants to do a little research - we told her to just trust her sense of smell.
