“Manual Not Included: I Never Got the Last Chapter.”: Saving Dopey: a Battle Against Multiple Myeloma

By Darlene Simonian

Although most major cancers are occurring less frequently, some are on the rise and require greater efforts at control, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, cancers of the liver, pancreas, kidney, thyroid, and esophagus in men and women, testicular cancer in men, melanoma, and cancers of the brain and bladder in women and childhood cancer according to the National Cancer Institute.

These same cancers can also be found in animals. Multiple myeloma for instance is a rare neoplasm found in certain animals, including cats. This rare form of cancer ravaged our beloved and loyal cat. Manual not Included: I Never Got the Last Chapter is the first book to document the true life story of a familys pet cat, who was afflicted with this type of cancer. Its not unusual to assume a family pet will be around for years and then quietly pass away from old age. The ideal situation would be to just pass away peacefully while they sleep. Unfortunately, it doesnt happen that way.

Life goes along as usualfeeding them, playing with them, loving them, and watching them grow. Then one day they get sick, and the doctor mentions the word no one wants to hear, Cancer!

Every year, new cases of multiple myeloma will present itself at a veterinary office with little or no information provided to the owner. This book will allow pet owners worldwide to understand what multiple myeloma is and how to treat it if their cat receives this diagnosis. Although this book depicts the life story of a cat, the disease is not species specific.

Readers will find pictures depicting Dopey and his familys life over the last fifteen years. The many visuals in this book will help readers of all ages to bond with this fun and loving cat. The pictures of him will allow readers to feel his story and connect with him personally.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Aug 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466936805

Darlene Simonian

Darlene has had over 30 years in the healthcare industry and has a degree in Management, Education, Training, and Curriculum Development. She has spent over 30 years working with physicians and acute and post acute care facilities. The experience she has learned has made it possible for her to create this manual to assist various departments in the acute and post acute setting with quick and efficient training methods for internal and external staff. Darlene is currently a hospital liaison and completed her MBA with National University School of Business in 2010. She also earned her bachelors of science dgree from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, in adult education in 2003. Darlene lives in California and enjoys running, cycling, ministry work, and spending time with her nephews Kaleb, Aaron, and Breckon and her sisters Donna and Dawn. She especially loves spending time with her new baby Jaxx a yorkie/poodle mix.

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Copyright 2012 Darlene Simonian.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

isbn: 978-1-4669-3662-1 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-3663-8 (hc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-3680-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012909913

Trafford rev. 08/08/2012

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www.trafford.com

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Contents

Part I The Emergency Room

Chapter 1 Back to the Vet

Is It Cancer?

Losing Dopey

Don’t Leave Us

Part II From the Beginning

Chapter 2 It’s Not Just Black and White

Mother’s/Fathers Health

Domestic Cats

Genetics

Breed

Survival

Chapter 3 The Big Flood—All Washed Up

Cats, Water, and Dog-Food Cans Don’t Mix

No Place for Cats

Time to Move On

Chapter 4 Where’s Dopey?

Dopey and the Ghost Cat

Downsizing

Dopey’s Personality

Chapter 5 Teenage Years!

A New Addition to the Family

The Fun Begins!

Dopey Learns New Tricks

Dopey’s Great Outdoors

The Head Sleeper

Chapter 6 Who Me?

Lack of Fiber in His Diet

Dopey’s a Little Devil

The Abominable Snow Cat

Dopey and the Worm

Chapter 7 Dopey and the Disappearing Plant

What Plant?

Emergency Surgery

Troublemaker

Part III Onward and Upward

Chapter 8 Christmas Away from Home

Cat Sitting

The Big Deployment

Holidays without Pop Pop

Part IV Dopey Goes to Las Vegas

Chapter 9 Moving Day

Trick or Treat!

Trimming the Fat

Calm before the Storm

Part V Saving Dopey

Chapter 10 Save Our Son!

A Miracle

Going Home

Chapter 11 I Can Do This!

Chemotherapy Side Effects

Trying to Pill a Cat

Remission

I Want to Go Home

Part VI Back to California

Chapter 12 Our Worst Fears

Road Trip

A New Vet

Something’s Wrong

Bone Marrow Test

Two Weeks to Live

Chapter 13 Veterinary Specialty Hospital

Another Transfusion

My Research

He’s in Good Hands

Fluid on the Brain

So Many Questions

Dr. Brenda Phillips and her 2 cat case study

Chapter 14 No More Pain

Living Life to the Fullest

It’s Time

Those Left Behind

Chapter 15 Dopey Lives On

I wanted to write this book for several reasons: one, because I wanted to make sure that the memory of our son Dopey would live on forever. Two, because I wanted readers who are experiencing cancer with their own pets to know they are not alone. Three, I want readers to know what multiple myeloma is and how to treat it. Together, all three of us fought a cancer that was rare in cats. Little research has been done because very few cats who contract this cancer have lived long enough to see its response to treatment.

He is my little angel now because on Friday, June 29, 2007, at 3:20 p.m., our son Dopey truly became a little angel and went to be with the Lord. It has been five years since his passing, and not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. My heart and gut just wrench with sadness, and my eyes fill with tears every time I see his pictures. There are times when it hurts so bad, I feel like I am going to jump out of my skin. Every day in our life, we are touched by someone so special. Someone like Dopey who forever leaves a paw print on our soul.

Because Dopey did so many things that made him the special boy that he was, it would be impossible for me to write everything he did. Otherwise, the book would be thousands of pages long and you would never be able to finish it. I want to make this book just long enough that his essence will capture your heart and soul. I want you to feel as though you knew him personally. Because Dopey did so many special things, I want to start the book from the beginning when I first saw him, and he took me on a journey that forever changed my life.

I hope that when you finish reading this book, you will have also learned more about multiple myeloma, the cancer that took our son’s life. Should you ever face this cancer with a beloved pet, you will know that you did not face it alone.

In memory of our son Dopey Simonian and my mother, Marion Licata, who both passed away in the same year. My mom loved Dopey and never got to see him one last time before she died. Now they see each other in heaven!

Special thanks to Matthew Simonian (Pop Pop) who loves the boys with all of his heart. Dr. Kimberly Selting of Missouri University, Dr. Brenda Phillips of the Veterinary Specialty Hospital in Sorrento Valley, California, and Dr. Joe Alcorn of Care Animal Hospital in Temecula, California. Also a special thank you to the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine for their veterinary expertise and their quest to find cures for these horrible diseases, especially cats with multiple myeloma.

Special Thanks to Dr. Brenda Phillips

for her expert contribution to my book.

Part I

The Emergency Room

Chapter 1

Back to the Vet

Did you know in 2006, nearly half of pet owners or 49.7 percent considered their pets to be family members? There are more than 72 million pet dogs in the United States and nearly 82 million pet cats, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.

A good part of the veterinarian’s canine and feline practice today is the care of the geriatric animal. It is not at all unusual to be presented with a dog or cat that is ten to twenty years old and whose health has been preserved relatively well through frequent veterinary care. Many of these older animals, however, are presented with a disease that we still cannot cure at least in many cases—cancer. Just as in man, the diseases of old age in our pets are cancer, heart disease, and kidney failure according to ONCO. It began for us on a cool and dry desert day in Las Vegas, Nevada.

My heart was pounding, my forehead was sweating, and my stomach was wrenched in a knot despite my efforts to stay calm and in control. My husband and I were heading over to the emergency room with Dopey. He was lying calmly and quietly in his pet carrier. This is how I knew our cat was sick because calm and quiet do not go together when describing Dopey, in a pet carrier, in a car, and on his way to the animal emergency hospital.

When Matt called me upstairs because Dopey was acting very odd, I just figured he was up to one of his cat antics, which probably included him sniffing the air and staring up at the ceiling at something no human could see, only a cat.

My worry began when I saw him lying on the floor and pressed up against the wall, unwilling to move no matter how much I touched him or tried to pick him up. This was not like him; usually trying to pick him up constituted a playful gallop away or sometimes even a bite that said, Find your own spot! I tried everything to move him and get him to stand up and stop playing around. On occasion, he has been known to lay in wait for his prey. Usually, this would involve his brother Simon, and he would get pounced on when he least expected it. This time, Dopey wasn’t teasing and he wasn’t trying to act cute, he really was sick and in some kind of pain.

It was bad enough that we had a sick cat, but now, we were driving around trying to find the animal emergency hospital from the yellow pages. All four of us, Matthew and I and Dopey and Simon, had just moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, six months ago and we hadn’t researched veterinary offices. The cats had just had their yearly checkups right before we had moved, and they both had a clean bill of health. Neither one of them had been sick before, so we figured we had at least six months to find them a veterinarian that we were comfortable with.

After following the directions the animal hospital gave us, we arrived at the emergency hospital and took Dopey inside right away. It was a busy night as usual: sick dogs and sick cats and pets that had been hit by cars. Luckily, we were taken in to an exam room fairly quickly and we let Dopey out of his carrier. The technician took his weight and temperature and then calmly wrote down all of the symptoms we described to her. When she was done, she left the room and we sat alone with our boy, nervous and anxious as to what could have caused this.

My initial fear was that he had been bitten by a black widow or a scorpion. Living in the desert, these critters are a lot more bountiful than in California where we came from. We regularly had a pest control company come out and spray, and I checked and cleaned the house regularly to make sure none of these creatures came inside, but it could happen, I guessed. Matt figured he probably ate something that didn’t agree with him and he just had a simple bellyache.

Prior to the vet coming in the exam room, Dopey let a big cry of pain and then proceeded to poop on the clean/shiny tile floor. He then walked over to the wall and lay down against it. He placed his head on top of his front paws as if he was going to take a nap. This was so unlike our boy, he had good manners: if he didn’t have a litter box to go in, he would hold it until he did.

Before long, the veterinarian came into the exam room and gave Dopey the once-over. Because she didn’t get bit meant one of two things: one, he was really sick, or two, she knew how to properly handle animals. I tend to lean closer to the fact that he was really sick. After an exam, x-rays, and blood work was done, the doctor told us she didn’t see anything on the x-ray or blood work that was substantial, but she gave us some medication and diet instructions and told us to follow up with our regular vet.

We felt relieved that they didn’t see anything serious that would cause us to lose our boy. But deep down inside, my mother’s intuition told me that there was more going on than what was already revealed to us. About a month went by and we found ourselves back at the veterinary office again.

Several tests and office visits later, our worst fears came true when the words I think its cancer were uttered in the examination room. Not here! Not now! Not my boy! From the day I first got these two cats at the young age of six weeks old, I only pictured days of happiness, fun, love, and nurturing. I never gave any thought to how long I would have them, how many things we would do together, and how much my life would forever be changed because of them.

I wanted a vet that was close to the house so Dopey wouldn’t get so freaked out every time we had to make a road trip. We returned back home with Dopey and gave him some medicine right away that he promptly spit out and started foaming at the mouth. He ran around like a rabid dog and carried on like I was killing him. He was very sensitive that way. He knew when he didn’t like something and he had no problems letting you know if it was not pleasing to him. After he settled down and some medicine made it into his stomach, he went to sleep and we drove Donna to the airport. Here I was sad that she was leaving and worried sick about my son. Once she was on her way to board, we headed home. We kept an eye on Dopey all day and night, and then the next day, I picked a vet that was close to the house that said it was a cat hospital.

I figured this was the place to be because they specialized in cats. I took him in and there were cats everywhere. They had office cats that roamed all over the waiting room. I didn’t mind because I love cats, but I knew Dopey was not a happy camper. It probably smelled like the cat zoo to him; he was already upset from being in the car. After a short time, we went in to the exam room and the doctor came in to see him. I was quite surprised when she was working with Dopey because she appeared to be afraid of him. At first, I thought this was unusual for someone who works solely with cats. However, after watching Dopey hiss and spit at her, I would be intimidated too. Dopey had a growl and a stare that would scare me if I didn’t know him, plus you never know what a sick cat is capable of. She did a thyroid test, an eye test (because his eyes were teary and goopy), and did another x-ray.

She recommended some eyedrops because the weather in Vegas is so dry and Dopey was probably having a reaction to the dryness. She said he would need to be on these as long as we lived there. She said her judgment of the x-rays was that he had what appeared to be a lot of gas and that was making it hard to see anything else. She said she didn’t see anything else that stood out to her at that time. She said to keep him on the eyedrops and the medicine that the emergency vet gave us and check back in two weeks.

I still felt uneasy that I could not get a definite answer from anyone about why he suddenly started acting like this. We took Dopey home, and of course, he hated the eyedrops as much as he hated the other medicine, but I managed to get them in his eyes.

Over the next couple of weeks, Dopey seemed fine. He was going to the bathroom good and eating and drinking normally. At this point, Matt had gotten a job doing what he did in the military with a civilian company, but it was out in Twenty-Nine Palms, California. I couldn’t believe it! We moved to Las Vegas so Matt could get a normal job, and because he couldn’t find anything in Vegas, he was now working where we had just moved from. Because the distance was several hours away through a long and mostly desolate desert, Matt stayed there during the week and only came home on the weekends. I was back to being alone again with the boys. I managed to keep a close eye on Dopey even though I was running around all day trying to find work as a new realtor.

Trying to find work as a new realtor had me walking around house to house, delivering flyers and attending every office meeting. I bought an expensive software program to help create letters, mailers, and keep a directory of all possible home buyers and sellers. We bought a new copier, fax, scanner, and printer so I could do everything from my home. I spent a lot of money on marketing forms, signs, gizmo, and gadgets to be the best I could be at my job. I really enjoyed doing this because I have done sales and marketing my whole life and I was good at it. I loved that I could be home with the boys most of the time and work right there in the bedroom so I could keep an eye on Dopey and make sure he was taken care of, especially if the littlest thing changed.

Is It Cancer?

February came, and suddenly, Dopey was having diarrhea again. I could tell he wasn’t feeling well, and I instantly freaked, wondering why this was happening again. I saw that there was an animal hospital right next to our house, not even a block away. I wasn’t sure from the outside if this was a good place or not, but I needed to take Dopey somewhere and I didn’t want to return to the cat hospital. I made an appointment with the veterinarian they scheduled me with, Dr. Brian Hewitt.

They took us in to the exam room, and Dopey was actually pretty quiet and good, which was not like him. When he was feisty, it meant he is feeling normal or very agitated. Right now, he was docile, and now, I was worried all over again. Dr. Hewitt came in and he was very nice and very calm and patient. He listened to everything I told him and I didn’t feel rushed. After he examined Dopey and looked at the blood work and x-rays that I brought in from the other doctors, he recommended that we take some more blood work and urine and that we do what they call an electrophoresis test. I asked him why we needed a test like this and what it was for. He told me the electrophoresis would narrow down whether or not he had cancer and what kind it might be. He said he wasn’t certain, but he had a pretty good idea that Dopey did in fact have cancer.

Instantly, my heart dropped and I felt like I was in a tunnel. All I could hear was cancer ringing through my brain and I thought I was going to pass out. I asked him why he thought this and what kind of cancer he thought he might have. He said he needed to make a phone call and discuss Dopey’s case with one of the cancer specialists in the area and he would be right back. He took Dopey to the back room to start the tests, and I immediately called Matt with the news while I was waiting in the exam room. He was shocked and had more questions than I did. I understood a lot of the things I heard because of my prior vet experience, but Matt knew nothing and everything I told him sounded foreign.

Dr. Hewitt had consulted with his colleague who was a cancer specialist and worked right there in Las Vegas, and she said his theory seemed right on track. He told me the two types of cancer it might be are lymphosarcoma or multiple myeloma. He said the next steps to take to find out for sure was to have an ultrasound done and a bone marrow test. He suggested doing the ultrasound first because it was less invasive, and if he saw anything, he could then do a needle aspiration and send it to the lab. He said if they didn’t find anything on the ultrasound, he would then put Dopey under anesthetic and do the bone marrow test. After asking him about all of the pros and cons to doing these tests and what the risk factors were, I reluctantly told him I would do it. I was scared out of my mind that something would happen to Dopey while having the tests done, but I was more afraid that he would die from cancer before we could start treatment.

They scheduled Dopey for two days later, and I spent the whole time sick to my stomach with worry and sadness that my cat had cancer. I always pictured my cats living until they were twenty or twenty-five and dying of old age. Nothing like this had even crossed my mind especially not at the age of fourteen. I know most people probably think fourteen is a long time for animals to live and that I was lucky to have him that long. Fourteen is fairly young for cats since they can live to be over twenty years old. Either way, it was not good enough for me. He was a good boy and a special boy, and this was not going to be all the time I was allowed with him.

When the day finally rolled around, Dopey was having a fit because he couldn’t eat or drink anything from the night before. Whenever I had to fast the boys because they were going under anesthetic for a dental, they always looked at me so pitifully and I couldn’t explain to them why this was happening. I just kept telling him that it was for his health and we needed to find out if he did in fact have cancer.

I took him over to Dr. Hewitt’s office and I dropped him off. They said an outside specialist comes in to do the ultrasound tests, so they weren’t sure exactly what time the procedure was going to be done. They told me to call them in the afternoon to check on his pickup time. I said no problem and to please call me sooner if he is ready to go home early. I left the office a nervous wreck and went home and cried. I couldn’t believe all of this was really happening. I felt bad for Dopey because he had been to the vet so often lately, more often than he ever had before, and I knew he must have been scared. I wondered how many hisses and spits the office would get before Dopey was sent back home.

Losing Dopey

After sitting at the house for a while, I decided to go out to the store and do some shopping, I needed something to do to pass the time and take my mind off what was happening to our son. I