That Was a Good Day

It’s definitely the chemo causing the GI problems. Last week on the Leukeran was awful for Mina, but this week she’s a whole new dog! Yesterday, she took a good walk and had that nice BM I told you about, she ate her breakfast and both of her mid-day snacks, and she ate twice more in the evening. She even tolerated my attempt to add bone meal to her chicken by mixing in a little veggie broth. Learned my lesson – the bone meal goes in the baby food until she’s back on Chow Now where I can hide the bone meal better.

We had a lively walk in the pouring rain yesterday when I came home. That storm blew in fast and left fast, but not before we had quarter-sized raindrops falling on us – all at once! We took another walk in the evening and ran into Cooper and his mom and some other neighbors. One of the guys tried to get Mina’s attention for some petting but she only had eyes for Cooper. Mina surely does love her own species. She lets Cooper drool all over her, too.

We had some play time indoors and Mina got another new supplement, fish oil capsules. It’s only for the short-term to help with her skin irritations. I’ll switch her back to flax oil when the capsules are gone. I can compromise on feeding her some farm animals, but I can’t take part in the destruction of marine wildlife when there are good plant-based alternatives available.

Mina’s urinary incontinence seems to have gotten a lot better, too. I find tiny spots on occasion, but not many of them. This is a very good thing as her two mid-day walks come to an end after chemo. Auntie Lolo promised to help us out during the chemo months, but it’s a strain on her staff to come and walk Mina and feed her every day. I’m hoping they’ll be able to come and check on her from time to time, though.

This morning Miss Bean ate her breakfast of boiled chicken with Forti-Flora mixed in, took all her peanut butter-coated meds and treats, and had a nice, normal bowel movement. I hope we can keep this going into next week, but we’ll see. That Adriamycin/doxorubicin is a real bitch.

s.

 

Poop is So Exciting!

This morning I’m pleased to announce that Mina had her first normal bowel movement since Tuesday morning. w00t! She ate very well on Tuesday and Wednesday but I was starting to worry about the lack of poopage. Very relieved.

Right now, Mina’s eating boiled, shredded chicken and ground beef and eggs baked with a little garlic powder and parsley. I’m going to buy a cart of the cat Chicken Chow Now this weekend – it has more chicken in it than the dog variety – and cook it in little snack-sized balls for her. If she likes it, then I’m going to start slowly transitioning her on to that food. I am hopeful that after chemo is over that she’ll enjoy it again. If she does, then we’ll eventually transition her to eating it raw once her immune system is recovering.

Mina’s been in a really good mood these past two days. I turned off my computer at home around 8 p.m. because she wanted to play for a bit. Then we took a last walk outside and got ready for bed. She was her usual sleepy head this morning and didn’t want to walk but I told her we weren’t going inside until she pooped!

Today I’m going to find a better source of calcium carbonate for her, probably stop at Whole Paycheck on my way home. I bought the Tums on Dr. B’s advice but I just don’t want to give her that crap any more. I can’t get bone meal because I’m not always sure she’s going to eat, so a pill or capsule will work best. Mina still looks forward to her peanut butter-coated pills twice a day.

Oh … starting the second week in September I’ll be returning to my Thursday telecommute day. I switched to Tuesday to accommodate Mina’s chemotherapy schedule but I like Thursday better (sometimes adding Friday is not so difficult!).

That’s all for now. It should be a good week.

s.