T Dragon

Hi!!!!! My name is Suzannah. These are my kids – LoKi and Juno. Two, 7 year old Newfie Mixes that I inherited at the age of 6 months. This is how they looked when I brought them home. It’s been a wild ride living with these two! Completely codependent on each other, I have always thought of them as one big fluffy unit. Not to be separated. Ever. The plan was for them to die in their sleep on the same night, curled up to one another. Maybe at age 14. That was the plan.

On November 16, 2016 – I noticed that LoKi lost interest in her food. Huge red flag for this little food goblin. I assumed something was wrong with her teeth and took her to the vet. At that point, the vet said that her lymph nodes were swollen and that we would have to do further testing. My heart began migrating towards my stomach that day. Possible Lymphoma? Nope. No fucking way. This girl is an ATHLETE. She runs, swims, jumps and can catch a ball like nobody’s business. She knows the names of at least 5 different toys (which means she totally understands English). I just couldn’t wrap my brain around it. Why?!?!?!?!

Fast forward 2 weeks, she has been diagnosed with T-cell Lymphoma and has made a couple of trips to Colorado State University Animal Hospital to investigate our ‘options’. Without treatment…. 2-3 months. With 15 weeks of chemo….. a few more months???? Nobody could say, as T-cell is the deadliest of the lymphoma subtypes and rarely responds to chemo. What to do?? Put our baby through an expensive, arduous protocol so that we don’t have to hurt for a few more months??? It didn’t seem fair. Over the next few weeks my husband and I discussed the options, cried every day and got in touch with our spiritual side. I had days when I wailed, begged and pleaded with whatever god that would listen, not to take my little girl. I’m pretty sure that’s the bargaining phase of LOSS.

For the immediate time being, Mark and I decided that we needed to do something about her anorexia as she had lost 15 lbs without us even noticing (she’s crazy furry). I had heard something about cannabis helping with nausea and appetite, so I started researching. Mark took his first trip to the local dispensary, which happened to be across the street from his federal job. It was a bit stressful taking that step, but our kid was in need. He talked to the ‘budtender’ and by some miracle managed to come home with some CBD oil made by Mary’s Medicinals. We started giving her 2-3 drops at breakfast about the same time that we started her on Prednisone. To much relief, she started to eat again.

The next few months were filled with prednisone, CBD and a few single chemo drug options that we were hoping might help SOME, without causing her to feel like crap. We felt extremely fortunate that everything we tried was completely free of any side effects. No nausea, bowel issues, lethargy, hair loss, etc. I TOTALLY attribute this to the CBD and her super bad ass personality. With every card played, I held my breath, not that she would be cured, but that she would not GET sick. So far, so good! We are at FIVE months now, and she is running around like a puppy on the tiniest dose of prednisone (5 mg) and CBD. We give her 3 drops in the am and 3 drops in the evening.

I meditate often on the time we have had with her and am nauseatingly grateful for each and every day. I am finally appreciative that she is not in pain and that if she has to die at 7…….. it will have been a good life. She sure as hell doesn’t know what cancer is and I don’t want to ruin her remaining time by crying every damn day. I hope I am ready like I think I am. Only time will tell.

ANY hoozle, THIS is when my complete OBSESSION with cannabis started. You can find endless videos on youtube about dogs and their miracle cannabis stories. Many who have gone into remission after receiving a devastating diagnosis such as ours. I don’t foster any delusion that LoKi is going to beat the T Dragon for years to come, but am just happy that she has not had ONE ‘sick’ day since that awful first week in November. I promised that I would protect her that first day I brought her home to live with us. I promised her that she would never be in pain under my watch. No matter HOW much my heart would ache – I would never allow her to suffer.

So on the days when I stopped crying long enough to go into FULL ON cancer fighting warrior mama bear mode, I researched. I started with www.projectcbd.org. THEN, I read every single article I could find on every condition I could think of. Parkinson’ Disease, Cancer, Epilepsy, Autism, Chrons, TBI, opioid addiction, neuropathic pain, Diabetes, MS, etc.  I noticed right away that the studies were much more prevalent in Israel and Germany. I noticed that our lack of research was painfully scarce. The anecdotal information, on the other hand was never ending AND compelling to say the least. The number of healthcare and science professionals ALREADY deep in the game was incredible! I was hooked!!

So begins our journey. I will do my best to catalog articles, treatment strategies and research studies in a way that can help educate both you and myself. If my passion for better health and quality of life, along with my nursing experience can be of help to any one person than I guess my goal will have been achieved. There is a lot of great information, a lot of misconceptions, a huge national discussion, political roadblocks to overcome and oooohhhhhh sooooo many people to bring up to speed. DIVING. IN.