Friday

  

Today was an emotional roller coaster with Dee Dee.  She refused to eat this morning and she hasn't pooped since yesterday morning. Her doctor had told us that when it was time for her to be euthanized, she would tell us, and that we would know. We feared that the time was nigh. We searched on the Internet to learn how long a dog can live without eating. It's 2-5 days, depending on their health.

Not eating means that she doesn't get her medicine, since that's the only way we know to get her to swallow pills, even ground-up pills.

Our world was caving in on us.

I called the animal hospital and got us an appointment for 2:30. We spent the morning preparing ourselves for the appointment.

John went for a mental health walk while I stayed behind to be with Dee Dee. When he got back, I took my turn walking. In the meantime, she refused any kind of food.

 

We took her for a walk on the island early this morning, hoping that she would go to the bathroom and be ready to eat.  It didn't work. Freshly cooked chicken--rejected.

 

 

She just wanted to sleep.

Then while I was fixing lunch for us, I tried again. She ate. Then she took her medicine. That changed things significantly. We began to breathe a bit easier.

 

We sat around waiting.

The doctor saw her and said she looked better to him than she did last time he saw her. She had actually put on weight. He said that it wasn't time to euthanize her. 

 

He did a blood test to check her kidney functions, since that can cause a loss of appetite. He said it's possible that her kidneys are shot. He said it would be better to add grains and vegetables since high protein diets are not good for kidney failure, but he said if meat is all that she'll eat we don't have a choice.

 

I read online that baby food is good for dogs when they are rejecting other food. So John and I bought our first two jars of baby food. Dee Dee finished the beef jar immediately.

Later, I got her to take her evening meds with John's crock-pot chicken. So we are back on track.

Her doctor has given her almost 6 months more life, but when it looked like it was going to end today, it didn't seem like enough.

We get one more day and perhaps a few more, for which we are grateful.

I was so exhausted I took a nap.

Miles walked: 5
Miles biked: 0