All Clear

This was one happy Raven owner yesterday afternoon when I took Raven for her second blood test after the marrow transfer on the 5th of this month. Last week there wasn’t any movement in her white blood cell count and that was to be expected. This week Ken anticipated that the marrow should have kicked in and starting churning out some white blood cells. Yesterday he came out with a big smile on his face and let me know that the marrow had taken and was now working well. Her WBC was up to 2. Which isn’t a lot for most dogs but for Raven who has always had low WBC counts this is normal. Her platelets were at 33 which is fine, a little low for a competitive agility dog but he was more interested in the fact that the count had increased from 25 last week to 33 this week.
Everything else in normal range and he said that in terms of her marrow transplant the time frame for when there were going to be serious complications or risks had passed and that she was now essentially just a normal dog. He did say that her immune system could still be compromised but that things like that were easily identified and treated with medication.

I don’t think I stopped smiling all afternoon, it was really a big relief to have got through this and to know that she has no more chemotherapy to go through and that this, really, was it. Apart from some regular blood tests Raven is pretty much back to the dog she was before this disease ever latched onto her.

So I was kind of quietly ecstatic to take her to training last night. She attacked all her obstacles with her usual enthusiasm, decided to test me on my start line rules and had fun barking at me when I got in her way. She barked her head off when left in the crate when I trained the others and was most pleased with herself whenever it worked and she got taken out again to do some work. Although I’m quite sure she doesn’t see it as work.

She is running in a team on Saturday at the fun agility teams event to raise funds for cancer research. I have sent her team at Murdoch an invite, it would be great for them to share in the joy she gets from agility and to see what they have helped her live for.