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#sashcancerhero: Dave: Ruby

Published on November 29, 2022.

Story from #sashcancerhero: Dave: Ruby

Ruby is a 9-year-old Bull Arab x Great Dane. She is my world, she is my support dog that helps me manage my depression and anxiety, but not only that, she is family and my best buddy One night after ruby had eaten her dinner i called her inside, she went to come inside but seem like she didnt know where the doorway was and she then bumped in to the door it self rather than walking in to the door way, and then she started using her paw as if to feel around to step in to the door way. The night before she was fine and come in as normal, but after checking her over and trying some different things i could tell she had gone totally blind, my first thought was that she had suffered a stroke or something for this blindness to come on so quick, so the first thing i did was got her in to the local vet that very next morning. The vet checked her over and could feel her lymph nodes where swollen as well as loss of sight and took some blood tests to send off to pathology, this was on a Thursday and i was waiting for the results to come in on the Friday, but they didnt come, On that Saturday Ruby seem to be going down hill, she started going off her food, and was very lethargic and i was getting extremely worried, my local vet was closed so i decided to take her down to Sash 24 hour emergency at North Ryde, where they did a thorough examination including an ultrasound, they didnt want to speculate but i could tell all the signs where pointing to cancer by this time, By Monday Sash had got Ruby’s blood tests back and organised another consultation with a optometrist and a oncologist veterinary specialist, we first seen the optometrist where her eyes where checked out, and besides a small amount of cataract that was normal for her age there was blood in her eye balls preventing her from seeing, other than that all the other parts of her eyes where good. Next was the oncologist where we got the news that Ruby had come back positive for lymphoma, the oncologist Dr Spela Bavcar was very good at explaining everything to us and gave me scripts for prednisone and steroid drops for her eyes, we then had to get tests done again to determine if it was the T or the B lymphoma and again my local vet was delayed in getting the results for that. Eventually we got them and it came back that Ruby’s results had returned as B cell lymphoma. at this stage the prednisone and steroid drops have been working very well and after a week Ruby has almost got her full sight back and seemed almost back to her old self. The cells had dropped in her system but we still have a little way to go to fully eradicate them, today was the first day of chemo, and she did so well, she was so well behaved and did everything that was asked of her, i think she really likes the staff at sash. We will be back at sash next week for another blood test to see how well the chemo worked and then we are looking at another dose in 2 weeks after that. I truly feel with the care she is getting at sash and Ruby’s strong will, we’ll get through this.
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