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Our beloved Mervyn passed away peacefully in our arms on Christmas Eve, we will keep him in our hearts forever 💔

Mervyn had his amputation one year ago on May 3 2019. He sailed through chemotherapy, finished in Sept. 2019 and passed his staging tests. We’ve chosen to monitor his bloods every 4 months and check for lumps but no further invasive treatments. He is the happiest soul and brings huge joy to our lives every day, now more than ever in these strange times. Thankyou Tripawds.com for all your help, advice and support when we embarked on this journey a year ago.

Mervyn has finished his 8th and last chemo and will have staging tests next week to confirm all well. Its been a long 5 months since his amputation and his therapy began but he has been a trooper through it all. He is an amazing dog and a very special part of our family. 🐾❤️

An update on Mervyn’s progress. He’s in good form, hopping around and generally well. He had his 3rd Chemo today following  another delay with bloods, he had a 10% reduction in the Vinblastine dose to try avoid the impact on his white blood cell count. After his next treatment, he will have 4 more sessions spaced two weeks apart. He’s such a sweetheart and is taking this all in his stride however we can’t help but feel sorry for his loss of exuberance and the way he used to fly around the house at high speed, stealing things and being mischievous. We miss our walks with him and we cant take him out with a low white blood count to minimize risk of infection. Thankfully we have a large garden to explore. We see so many posts and videos of dogs flying around, we wonder how long it will take post op and post chemo to see the energy return? He has lost 3kg understandably (26kg now) and although we are watching his food intake to keep his weight good, we cant help but feel he should be having a little extra😆 to spoil him! We take a trip soon and are very lucky that for the few days, one of the Vet nurses has agreed to mind him in our home, we weren’t happy with him visiting his usual kennels considering all his new needs, maybe next time. Ps his toy is new, his name is Teddy, we removed Teddy’s right leg and stitched him up to empathise with Mervyn 😉

Merv had his 2nd chemo yesterday (vinblastine). His White Blood Cell Count WBC was 2.8 so good to go. It was 16 days since his first due to low WBC. He had no side effects last time other than tiredness (and low WBC) so fingers crossed it will be similar this time. He is on steroids also along with antacid, antihistamine and they are leaving him on antibiotic for next 7 days to see if this helps with low WBC.  He was in great energetic spirits the last few days so its hard to see him so tired after yesterday and the idea that there are 10 more of these to go is not encouraging but we promised ourselves we will take our cue from Mervyn and if we feel it is something he is not ok with we will stop. We have to be mindful that we are trying to do away with his cancer cells and balance that with his quality of life. Extra time is not as beautiful if Mervyn is not the happiest little dog.