Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown of Missoula, recently learned about a new way to treat lymphoma in horses from an internal medicine specialist at Ohio State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine.  This was very important news to us, because blind Chance and our little old mule, Lonesome George, are battling this form of cancer.

We’ve been treating Chance and George with dexamethasone, giving them an oral 5 cc dose every other day.  (We came to call these ‘dex days.’)  But dex can only do so much to keep cancer at bay, especially something like lymphoma.  So when we heard about the new chemotherapy treatment, our immediate reaction was, "We HAVE to try it."  Bill got the protocol last week and discussed the treatment plan with the Ohio State specialist on Friday.  The drugs arrived this morning and Bill came out this afternoon to start Chance and George on their chemo.

The treatment involves two chemotherapy drugs that are also used in human medicine.  The drugs will be administered in alternate weeks.  The first, cytarabine, is injected subcutaneously, and is what Chance and George received today.  The second drug, cytoxan, is given intravenously.  I’ll have to trailer Chance and George in to Bill’s clinic next week so he can administer that drug for the first time.  Then we’ll repeat the schedule for the next several weeks … one week cytarabine given here at the ranch, the following week cytoxan given via IV’s at the clinic. 

Bill measured swollen lymphnodes on each animal today, and we’ll keep track to see if there’s noticeable progress in reducing their size.  We also drew blood for baseline readings and we’ll repeat the blood panels every month to make sure we’re not damaging their livers with these drugs.  (As with human chemotherapy, there are risks involved, and we’ll have to closely monitor Chance and George to see how they respond.)

In the first photo Bill is injecting the cytarabine in Chance.  (Yes, Chance does not have any eyes, but that doesn’t keep him from being a big goof and a happy boy.  I jogged down the drive with him this afternoon, from Lena’s Barn to Beauty’s Barn, when he showed me he wanted to get some exercise.)

George is getting his dose in the second photo.  He’s really much smaller than this photo makes him appear … he’s only about 800 lbs.

In the third photo Bill is measuring Chance’s lymphnodes with a set of calipers.

And finally, in the middle of all this I looked out the window of the medical room in Beauty’s Barn and saw this scene across the drive:  Beth’s cabin in the snow, with Ovando Mountain in the background.  I took the photo through the window.