Wednesday, July 28

I had a long conversation with my good friend who knows way too much about chemo - professionally and lymphoma - personally. As he told me we are walking a thin line between the cancer which will rear its ugly head or infection because his immune system is being compromised by the chemo. Last week when his neutrophil count was 830 and the bottom of the range is 2,000, I spoke with University of Missouri and they told me they would probably admit into hospital overnight for fluids and antibiotics but as I was on the road and his temperatures was under 102.5 it would be ok to give oral antibiotics. A few days prior, Lucky just learned he could chase cows and when i set him free for the first time he ran into the barbed wire and then through it to chase the herd. He was exhilarated…until the herd turned back on him and he sprinted back to safety. I noticed that he cut up his snout, hear, legs and later multiple lacerations on his chest and arms. The thin line is that his immune system is compromised and he could get a deadly infection from his intestinal bacteria or running through cow pastures.

We woke this morning with a task list that would take all day but the only real item that weighted us was what would happened to Lucky with his scheduled chemo based on last weeks bad results and his drive to run 15-20 miles daily and chase cattle. Finding doctors to administer chemo is not easy in rural areas. When we travelled through Kansas and Missouri we travelled to University of Missouri. After numerous calls we found Dr. Beebout at Hilltop in Kearney NE to help us. Via email she was high energy and accommodating providing flexibility for when we arrived.

We arrived at her busy office and delivered Lucky to her for preliminary blood work to determine whether he was capable of receiving the treatment. To our great relief his count was back to 7,400 from 800 a week ago and well above the 2,000 needed threshold, it was a go! We live to adventure another day…

One final omen for us as I walked out of Hilltop Pet Clinic, I spoke to another woman who had a rescue pet with her and she told me the clinic just announced they are doing chemo and we must have been one of the first…Luck is really with Lucky.

The rest of our day flowed smoothly knocking off the chores that stack up over a week. Tomorrow begins our travels along the Platte river. On the south side of the river runs the Oregon and Pony Express Trails. We are taking the north side which is the Mormon and California Trails because there are numerous towns along the way while the south is most farm country.

There is heat advisory for next few days with feel like temperatures in the 109 zone so we will be getting out as early as possible.

All for today - thank you for your support!

Cheers,

David.

Dr. Beebout at Hilltop Pet Clinic in Kearney, NE