My Personal Cancer-Sniffing Dog

(Another obligatory cute picture of Maxie. This was in the car on the family trip to D.C. over Memorial Day weekend. She has little regard for my need for leg room,)

My plan for a fun-filled Fourth of July with the family ended up in the shitter pretty quickly.

It all started when I needed to change my progesterone treatment. Hormone pills are a common treatment for endometrial cancer, because they can reduce the tumor and may even push it into remission. Progesterone also helps to control excess bleeding, which is the major symptom of endometrial cancer and has been the bane of my existence this month.

Before the results of my tests even came back, my doctor put me on norethindrone to control my symptoms. This is a taper-down progesterone (you start with 3 a day, and gradually reduce until you're down to 1 a day). It worked OK -- my symptoms improved enough that I could actually carry out my daily functions -- but, after about a week, its effectiveness declined. I feared that it would just get worse (especially because my cycle was due), so right before the 4th of July holiday, I called my doctor's office and they gave me a  prescription for Megace -- a super-dee-duper steroid form of progesterone. My doctor told me that it will stop the bleeding dead, which gave me peace of mind for my upcoming holiday weekend with my parents and Maxie.

Super-dee-duper progesterone worked for me as advertised, but it took about a day and a half to achieve any effect. Since I had stopped the norethindrone the day before (doctor's orders), I had no effective progesterone control until the Megace fully kicked in, and my symptoms came back almost full force. I was completely unable to go to dinner with my parents on 4th of July, so they brought me a lovely takeout fish dinner, and I ate at the kitchen table with my concerned parents and Maxie.

There have been a handful of studies about dogs who can actually detect cancer in humans due to changes in body fluid scent or body odor. These studies are preliminary and typically have small sample sizes, so I don't expect cancer centers across the country to start building dog laboratories any time soon. That said, Maxie definitely knows there is something wrong with me. Maxie is a feisty, 25-pound terrier mix who saw no problem with jumping on my chest with a squeaky toy in her mouth when I (and most everyone this past winter) came down with a demonic respiratory infection that I affectionately named "I Can't Believe it's Not Tuberculosis!" But when I was lying on the couch this Friday, drained from the new meds, tired from the bleeding, and frustrated with the whole situation, this little high-spirited terrier became Nurse Maxie, periodically nudging me with her little scruffy head to see if I was OK, pawing at my hand, and finally, curling up in the little hole between my bent knees and the back of the couch for the entire evening. Now, if she could only learn to retrieve the Netflix remote...