End of the World. Beginning of a new one. The Life of Amberwolf.

[amberwolf]

I had to go get the benadryl for Tiny; didn't have any here. Since the SB Cruiser was down for controller testing/etc, I rode CrazyBike2 for the first time this whole month (20 days, almost three weeks).

WOW it is such a different ride...the trike is fun in it's own way, but CB2's acceleration and leaning into turns...that's a lot more fun.

Anyway...Tiny is not coughing as much, but she got pukey so I am trying to keep her inside where she can't stuff herself with mulberries and grass, and getting her to eat just a teeny little 1/4 tablespoon full of canned food at a time, then wait 15 minutes to half an hour, then another, etc. Seems to be staying down that way.

Of course, I'm using her absolute favorite canned food, the Wellness Core Salmon Whitefish Herring version in the brown and blue can...which stinks like it's rotten in teh can, but it's not. She eats taht so well that I could probably mix anything with it, even rocks, and she'd still eat it. Of course, she'd probably eat rocks anyway, if there wasn't anything else handy to much on when the siezure meds give her the munchies. :lol:

The first benedryl came back up whole with her mess, which I then made her leave alone so I could clean teh puddle up, :/ and then I crushed the next one so the powder would mix with a little water, peanut butter, and go her to lick that up off the bottom of her dinner bowl.

After taht she's been better, not coughing much at all, but just to be sure, we're sticking with the tidbits over time method instead of the stuff till she pukes one that she usually prefers.


The dry food isn't working cuz she just swallows it, doesnt' chew, then she coughs from whatever it is, and after she's wolfed down enough of the food she just pukes it back up. Then she eats that, and cycles thru this every so often....

If there isn't much food there, then she doesn't puke, so in the interests of keeping it down for her to digest it, and letting her medicines absorb (the PB for siezures, and the benedryl for the cough/goobers), she's presnetly ready to eat the entire spoon and hand when I finally get her next tidbit.

She's staying right here with me wherever I am, though, instead of running off, cuz I think she's finally figured out she gets nomz for being there. (really, she'd get them if I had to go find her...but I prefer her being right here so I can make sure she's not off stuffing herself with something and puking her meds/etc up).


Yogi doesn't think it's fair for her to keep eating, so I have had to give him some teensy tidbits too, just enough to taste, cuz he too apparently prefers stinky food.

 

[amberwolf]

Worried about Tiny, and spending the night feeding her little tidbits every so often, reading ES when the internet worked for it's short bits, dozing a copule times for a few minutes here and there.

I didn't get too much sleep until dawn again, when I dozed off a couple hours, then woke and started cleaning stuff (kitchen mostly; I've put it off for a while now). Got about half done with it when my younger sister came by; haven't seen her in just about a year I guess. We chatted, had lunch, chatted some more, then she had to go.

Tiny has already shown she doesnt' like her at all, but still I took both Tiny and Yogi out to greet her outside, hoping Yogi's love-everybody attitude would rub off. Yogi was happy enough and wanted to slobber on her and all, but Tiny wasnt' having any of it. I ended up having to have Tiny stay in the bedroom, and tried out Yogi with us in there, but then suddenly Yogi decided he didn't like her either, and I had to put him in there with Tiny, because he wanted to be aggressive, whcih he has never done before.

I really was surprised by his behavior, especially since he liked her just fine *outside*, and at first was fine inside. Maybe it was because Tiny wasnt' with him? Dunno. Either way, he's never done that before.


After that, since the internet was working for a few minutes, I checked email, pm's, posts, etc., then it went out again (at the ISP end rather than the wifi, as is typical the last several days). Played iwth the dogs a little, but it's pretty warm out there (was almost 95F at the hottest part of the day today, and was still almost 90F at taht time, early evening), and Tiny wasn't interested in being out there long, though Yogi doesn't care and wanted to run around being Yogi.


More fitful internet access since then, just once or twice it lasted long enough to post something I'd typed up while waiting, then lost ISP connection again. If I want to use it I basically have to leave the router status page up and as soon as I see green "connected" text I have to hurry up and click "post reply" and "submit", cuz often it only lasts seconds, and then could be anywhere from minutes to hours before I get another chance.

There are some unsecured wifi routers around here that the new bigger antenna can see, but the signal is often only strong enough to see, not to connect to. One of them will connect and give IP address and evertyhing, but has no internet connection on it. Unfortunatley it's the strongest signal of those unsecured ones. Another works for internet access, but it is only up for a few minutes at a time, randomly. I think they may only turn the router on when they actually use it, then turn it back off again.


That said, as I can get them to upload, I got pics of things. It could take days to get them all uploaded and edited into this post, though, at the present rate. (of course, right after I started uploading, it's stayed connected almost constantly, just to make a liar of me)



One set is Yogi harvesting mulberries (there's a short video too, but nto a chance of uploading it). And Tiny and Yogi munching the pieces of stick they jsut broke in half tugging each other aroudn with it. And a pic of them both snoozing in the livingroom, then one of each of them snoozing in their comfy spots (yogi by the front door so I can't escape without him knowing it, and tiny on the cool kitchen tiles just inside it's doorway so I can't get out the back way either :lol: ).


Another set is a "panorama" of the backyard in it's present state, showing the tree and lantana growth since the last set of such pics somewhere in previous posts.


There's a couple pics showing the bigger wifi antenna.

A pic of the laptop's cracked screen (whcih has grown from a little one at the top middle across and down to the rigth edge. guess it's time to see if any of the screens off any other dead laptops will plug in and work with it).




Another set showing the lantana I moved from the fish tank area, inclidng the sppots it came from, and then the transplanted tree adn where it came from.


A set showing the new trees in the front yard, and the planter with the lantana, and the planter with the desert plants grown from seeds harvested from various parking lots. I don't know what they are called, though. Not many sprouted, but I was surprised that any did.





The last pic is how the area shown in the pic a few posts up looks now, tried to take it from the same angle/etc but nto sure I quite got it.

View attachment 39

 

[amberwolf]

Today is not the cloudy / rainy day predicted...it's sunny and breezy and warm, about 75F in the shade right now (closer to 90F in the sun), so a pretty nice day, better than yesterday which was warmer already (almost noon now). Unfortunately the breeze is not as strong as yesterday, and the mosquitos are eating me.

Yogi's snoozing over in his spot against the blue plaid chair by the corner of the house and the graves.

Tiny is under the tree a few feet from him snoozing in the shade.

I'm under another tree with the laptop, wifi antenna contraption a few feet from me, checking mail, pms, posts, etc., while I wait for the rescue to call or text me about the vet appointment. Last night I'd heard only the suggestion that it might be this morning, but nothing else or since. Tiny's about the same as yesterday, but that's still worse than the previous days.

She had enough energy after breakfast to chase Yogi to get his stick for about 30 seconds, then she gave up and puked up breakfast and re-ate it for the second time, caused by coughing that is sort of like gagging.

Yogi doesn't seem concerned, and Tiny herself doesn't either, since she's a pukey dog anyway it's normal to her to do that.


I haven't felt much like doing anything at all yesterday or today; guess I'm too worried, probably over nothing. Can't seem to get motivated to do anything, even though I am not really that tired. Lots of stuff to do, though. First, though, lunchtime, since i skipped breakfast in anticipation of the vet trip/etc.





My only rant for today:
So far nobody that wanted me to do things with or for them (other than my younger sister) have gotten back with me, even though they know this is their last chance to do it for a while (months, probably) cuz it'll be that long before I'll be taking another vacation like this. But this is how it usually works out; they'll know in advance that I'm free during these, and that I can't do it other times, yet they will wait until after it's over and ask me, and I have to decline cuz of work. Sometimes times/dates are even planned for during the vacations, and pass with no contact from them, and then they get whiny that I can't reschedule it after they tell me they just couldn't be bothered to come by or call or whatever. Weren't any of those scheduled this time, becuase nobody got back to me to do so.

Oh, well, mostly their loss...except I would have liked the chance to get together with them.

 

[amberwolf]

Tiny's vet appointment was very long, and nothing worse than I expected. She has megaesophagus, which means that her muscles in the esophagus are not working, so it's all relaxed and enlarged so it's like a big tubular pocket, and stuff ins't being pushed down into her stomach: she can't "swallow" in the normal sense. It's probably been that way longer than I've known her, most likely all her life...but now that she's older, one of the complications of that has snuck up on her.

Since stuff doesn't get down to the stomach for a while, but instead sits there on the way down, then some of it can come back up (her pukies when she overfills herself, especially with water), and some of that can end up in the trachea, and then in the lungs...sometimes causing pneumonia.

That's what she has now, and is the cough and gagging. So there's Clavamox to treat that, and some other stuff was talked about but wasn't made clear if she's gonna get that too, or if it was just a possibility.



For humans, it wouldn't matter, cuz we walk upright, sit upright, etc., so stuff would go down to our stomachs eventually anyway on it's own.

For dogs, the esophagus is parallel to the ground, and for some like Tiny who snuffle the ground all the time hunting for tidbits, it's actually lower at the trachea/esophagus junction than the stomach, so stuff won't end up in teh right place at all, until she lays down somewhere and it slowly gets there...or she pukes it up when it flows far enough forward to gag her..

The only solution besides feeding tubes (which cause other problems, aside from having to stuff it down her throat twice a day and the experience she'd have of that) is to have her sit up as straight as possible (like a human), and feed her like a baby with a spoon ro something. Some dogs could eat from a bowl this way, but when tiny does that she immediately takes her head out of the bowl with the huge mouthful of stuff, dips her head down really low to the ground, then drops most of it while trying to choke it down, and then scarfs up the dropped bits. Totally defeating the purpose of sitting up, which is to let gravity force the food down to the stomach.


So the spoon it is. And the easiest way for her to get that down is if I first soak the kibble to make a gooey stew with chunks, at least in the first experiments tonight.

The catch with this method, is the esophagus isn't a narrow tube anymore...it's a big tubular pouch...so sutff doesn't just go right down. It slowly goes thru like a funnel. So the safest way to do it is to keep them upright for 10-20 minutes.

Yeah, like that's gonna happen with Tiny.

If it were Yogi, then I could possibly get him to sit still that long. Tiny doens't like to be held, though, and holding her is the only option for that, cuz on her own she wont even SIT without sliding down to laying for more than a minute.

The best I could compromise with was to stand in front of her while she sits on a blanket (so her front feet aren't sliding out from under her making it worse), and slowly feeding her little 1/4 teaspoonfuls of her food. That keeps her attention on something above her head, mostly, and keeps her sitting up. Yogi doesn't think it's fair for me to feed her like this; even if I toss him tidbits of it he doesn't want them; he wants the attention and/or direct feeding.

The catch is when I'm done with the food, she's instantly wanting to snuffle around the ground for nonexistent bits, so I have to then sit there with her and try to get her to stay sitting up, which is next to impossible. :/ Even trying to get her to lick the bowl and spoon clean while upright doesn't work, cuz she is CONVINCED there is more on the floor someplace.


This is going to be a forever routine for her, though, unless they come up with something for a cause of it for her (I suspect it's congenital and unfixable) that has a treatment that fixes it. So we'll all just have to get used to the idea.


Yogi of course came with us to the vets, cuz he doesn't wanna be without us (he seems to do ok for a while with one of us missing, but not both, and he is really attached to Tiny). He was extremely bored and depressed when he was stuck with us in the little exam room while Tiny was taken to another room for xrays and blood draws and such, which took like an hour and a half (when they said about 20-30 minutes). In all we wree there for maybe 2.5 hours or so, and it felt like several times that while waiting for Tiny to be brought back to us.

I did manage to eventually upload this pic, resized much smaller than usual, of them after all of that was done, still in the exam room sprawled on the floor exhausted from the ordeal. It's a terrible angle cuz I had to hold the camera over my head as I was sittng on the floo rwith them, and it took several shots to get even this image.

 

[amberwolf]

Well, feeding is a mess. :/ I've tried a couple of ways but so far the first is better. Gotta make her a bib with a big puffy pocket to stick out front and catch the droppings though, cuz she doesnt' get more than 2/3 of any spoonful actually in her mouth. Tried forks and flatter spoons of various sizes, no better, forks worse cuz she pokes herself with them cuz she's so desperate to get the noms in the tums.


Yogi is very unhappy with me for sitting there feeding her; he grudgingly eats his from his bowl, stopping and watching us every so often, then he grumpily stalks off to the couch under the doggiewindowdoor and humphfs as he curls up there, continuing to watch us (cuz this new process takes a while).

I tried giving him tidbits too, but he's uninterested in them; it's not the food he's after, it's the attention. When i go to him after Tiny and I are done, he is a little happier but it takes him a while to get over it. :/


Another change I made last night that neither one of them is happy at all with is removing their big water bowls, and putting up just a Lixit outdoor faucet waterer at snout level (a little higher than that for Tiny, which is the point). I used to use this for the other dogs before the fire, just left on the faucet under the swamp cooler cuz that was always in shade all day long, and most of them took to it right away as soon as I showed them where water came from, and didn't have any other water outside for them.


But neither Tiny nor Yogi have any interest at all in trying to drink from it.

Tiny I can get to lick it if I put peanut butter on the toggle, but she's careful with it to get only the pb and not let water out. :/



Yogi, as soon as it let water out, ran off and won't try it again. I'm gonna have to do this the hard way with him and not give him other water until he accepts it, or proves that he simply isn't going to. Normally I give him a cup of water with his breakfast, and anothe rwith dinner, to mix in a spoonful of wet food as "gravy", same as I do with Tiny (or did, before her new feeding method became necessary). I'll have to leave the water out at dinnertime tonight and see if I can convince him this thing isn't going to eat him.

He already drank the puddles in the backyard, mud and all, this morning before breakfast. :/ (tiny might've helped, but I doubt it; she hung out with me on the bed all night till I got up cuz she's really worn out).



Since it was still sprinkling when I wanted to check email/etc., and the tree isn't *that* good at keeping stuff under it dry, I moved the antenna / etc to near the back porch, and I can still (barely) connect to the unsecured wifi. Neighbor's wifi won't even let me connect now, or rather, it connects but won't assign an IP (not on my phone's wifi either), then it disconnects after a few seconds. Makes me think his router is dying, rather than his ISP being the root cause of the problems (or that his ISP flashed the modem/router with new firmware that causes these problems fr some reason).

The antenna won't work from close enough to the house to run a usb cable inside because the trees are in the line of sight for the wifi I found.

So I'm sitting under that "awning" I made by the back door, with the antenna rig about 10 feet north of me, at the limit of the USB cable, just north and east of the west porch mulberry, pointing between the othe rtrees at the middle northeast area of the yard.


Mmmmm....more intermittent heavy rain just started (the last sprinkles'd died off a bit over an hour ago and it got sunny with scattered clouds....which just came overhead). Wish it was likely to keep raining for longer. I tmight rain more tonight (30% chance).


Man...I haven't even done anything much today and I already feel like going back to bed for a long nap...too much to get done, though. (most of which i haven't evne tried to start all week).


Attached are some pics taken in past few days while I have a connection good enogh to upload them.

 

[dnmun]

maybe something like a turkey baster with a soft silicone rubber type tip or soft tube attached to the end so you could get it past the obstruction without gagging her too much. they sure found the guy with the patience to care for them. BOL hope it rains.

 

[amberwolf]

There isn't any actual obstruction...just an expanded esophagus with non- (or less-) functional muscles. So nothing to get past, unless a feeding tube is used to completely bypass the esophagus and just place the food into her stomach.

Aside from the issues that causes, and the problems with actually doing that twice a day every day, she'd be really unhappy at not "eating" anymore. (for her, I think the act of actually trying to gobble down the food is half of why she likes to eat...it certainly isn't to get a full tummy, cuz she's gotten into stuff when I first got her that filled her to puking it back up and it didn't stop her from continuing--if it were possible she'd rupture her stomach continuing to fill it after it was full).


The baster might make it easier to get stuff into her mouth than the spoon, but she'd be biting it to get at the food before I could put a little in her mouth, and then she'd do it more to get more out when I did (she already does this with the spoon/etc tried so far...they just get in the way of the food, to her. :lol: ).


There are a bunch of ideas and resources, tested and not, both online and in paperwork they gave me at the vet's, including "bailey chairs" and the like to hold her upright.

If I made her such a chair, I'd have to build it out of steel so she wouldn't break it, and use straps to hold her into it, which she might hurt herself trying to get out of it once the noms are gone (while there are noms she's a little less prone to try to get away from being held, but she still has a very short tolerance for it).

 

[amberwolf]

Yesterday morning, i washed some of Tiny's pukey drool off her forlegs and chin, and then afterward instead of using the blanket to rub around on she
discovered a new "wall towel". :lol:

[youtube]l5O-9i7fYVI[/youtube]

 

[amberwolf]

FINALLY I got Tiny to drink from the Lixit...and instantly turned her into a waterhog.


I let her have some while I got some pics/video, but she showed no sign of stopping and she was gonna fil herself up for puking if I let her keep at it.
[youtube]JJbjUUaqOxA[/youtube]

[youtube]rsK3TjCgEM8[/youtube]


So I had ot call her away, and actually had to pull her nose away from it and guide her away, and distract her with walking around the yard to keep her from going right back. I tried jus tsitting with her while what she'd gotten already had time to go down, but she wasn't having any of it so we walked around instead.

Yogi...he almost took a drink while she was, but it hissed when she swigged it harder once and he went right away from that.
[youtube]x0cACSTiSNg[/youtube]


Eventually i got him to come up to it, hours later, and lick it once while i held it dribbling, but then he follwoed the water down instead to the grass/mud below.

He knows where and what it is, though, so if I can get him past this shyness of the sound it makes, he'll get it quick enough. I gave him some ice cubes earlier, and he was only slightly interested in them, cuz there were too many noises int eh neighborhood he had to patrol the fence to investigate instead.

Also, my west neighbor found a 3foot high mulberry growing near her back house wall, needed to be moved so she asked me if I wanted it, and we proceeded to dig it out and move it over to the west side yard of the house, between the rooms, at the fence. So eventually it can shade both our yards. It didn't have very big roots yet, for some reason, but I still managed to tear some of them trying to get it up and out. So it might not survive...but I can hope. I damaged all three of the ones here by the back porch when transplanting htem, and they're all thriving now (even the one cut down into the ground by teh fire cleanup crew after the rebuild was all done!). We'll see.


Oh, and the back neighbor finally got someone from his ISP to schedule a tech to come out and fix the problem, whatever it is...sometime tomorrow. So after that it should be better, assuming it will work at all with my stuff after that (they'll probably replace the modem/router/wifi unit in the process).

Right now I can't even stay connected to the open wifi I had been using earlier today just fine. (the wifi doesn't drop but the internet connection times out constantly).

 

[dnmun]

maybe you could use a barkolounger reclining chair with an added bolster on each side to keep her centered and rotate her back enuff that way. maybe have a bar across her chest for her to put her front paws on top of to hold herself steady.

you have the patience of an angel. one of my cats is always barfing when he eats and it is so annoying. i know he does it deliberately to annoy me. goes out and eats enuff grass to cause him to puke when he gobbles down his kibbles.

those dogs don't know how lucky they are. but maybe they do.

 

[amberwolf]

maybe you could use a barkolounger reclining chair with an added bolster on each side to keep her centered and rotate her back enuff that way. maybe have a bar across her chest for her to put her front paws on top of to hold herself steady.

It'd be easier to build a Bailey Chair instead, which is basically a vertical box that she would be in the "sit up and beg" position, with a bar in front of her chest for paws to be on, kinda like an amusement park ride safety bar, as you describe above.

the problem is getting her into it, and keeping her from panicking and hurting herself trying to get out of it...because she doesn't like to be held onto, or held down, restricted, etc. She's ok if she volunteers for it, but as soon as she decides she doesn't like it she's willing to twist in very bad ways to try ot get away from something, squirming all over, and she could pull muscles or pop joints. She won't growl or bite or anything, just the risk to her own self is a problem.

you have the patience of an angel.

Oh, I have my limits on patience...but as these dogs are here for me, so I must be here for them. I know so many people who have just had their pets killed when they start having problems like this, cuz it's too inconvenient for them to deal with every day.

one of my cats is always barfing when he eats and it is so annoying. i know he does it deliberately to annoy me. goes out and eats enuff grass to cause him to puke when he gobbles down his kibbles.

For your cat's issue, well, my older sister has one that pukes everything up if she gets more than a tidbit at a time. It's not the same cause as Tiny's problem, but she'll starve if my sister doesn't watch out for her and make sure she eats only just enough to not puke.

It could be a similar issue, though I don't know if my sister has ever found the root cause of it.

My youngest sister used to have a Maine Coon that gagged on hairballs all the time, becuase he needed to be brushed much more often than she could manage with her physical problems, so his very fine long hairs would end up stuck in his throat when he would groom himself, and gag him, so he'd helpfully leave her presents wherever was most in the way so she would know he was distressed.

But I have seen some cat behavior that I would swear *was* just to annoy the "owner" (not what the cat would call them .

those dogs don't know how lucky they are. but maybe they do.

Even if they don't, I know how lucky *I* am for having them. I've had some real problem doggies before, and neither of these are. Tiny's issue is manageable, just is going to take a little more time from me to do it. Probably significantly more time at first, while I get the two of htem used to the new ways of doing things (Yogi is having as hard a time as Tiny, albeit for different reasons), and try to teach Tiny to stay sitting up while she eats and for a while afterwards.

I expect I'm going to have to build the bailey chair for her, one versio or another, and teach her to be okay with it (I doubt that part), but we'll try it without that extreme a measure first.



Now...if I can just get Yogi to use the Lixit waterer at all, and get Tiny to not use it to excess (I keep imagining a kid with a water balloon that doesn't know when to stop filling it....POP!).

 

[amberwolf]

I've been trying to decide how I feel about this...but so far haven't found anything yet, and I am not sure why.

Yesterday morning my older sister called to tell my my dad went into the hospital with a sudden really bad and painful swelling of his legs, and probable infection. He's got diabetes, so it could be related to that, but last I heard they don't know. Havent' heard anything today yet. My youngest sister flew out there yesterday. Neither my older sister nor I have that option, both because of money and because there is no one to take care of our animals for us.

In my case, I could probably get someone at or affiliated with the rescue to take Tiny and Yogi for a few days, but I don't know that *I* can live without *them* for that long, especially in such an extremely stressful situation as that would be. And there is no way of taking them with me, cuz they couldn't be "passengers" and would have to be cargo, and I will *not* put them thru that. I can't imagine anyone that would want to do a road trip out there and back with me and two St Bernards, and that's the only other method left. (it would probably take me weeks at best to get there with any of my creations).

I also doubt work would appreciate me being away for even another week or two, since it was not planned in advance.



In better news, Yogi has sort of started to use the faucet waterer, though often he'll shy away from it. Like Tiny, he's a little hard to stop once he gets started; it seems to cause obsessive behavior in both of them. :lol:


Tiny is feeling a little better--she dragged Yogi around with his stick for a while, and won, though she wasn't interested in destroying it when she laid down with it afterward, just panting and looking triumphant.

Her little limp that she picked up after the vet visit is getting better; I suspect she bruised a muscle or something (her right front leg AFAICT) in her unusual position sprawled across the edge of the rear bucket seat, gap between the back and front, and the center console, but that's where she decided she was happy and stable on the ride home. It could've also been on the ride there, when she was on the other side of my seat, hanging on the door armrest instead, but less likely cuz she showed no sign of the limp anytime during hte visit, but did not long after we got home, and had a little trouble even getting out of the car.

It's enough to keep her from sprinting around the yard, but not enough to keep her from playing this morning, or walking around--I think she gets tired from being sick faster than she gets bothered by the leg.


It's a lot warmer today already than yesterday, getting near 80F in the shade and only 11am. Is windy, more than breezy, with gusts enough to flap the cloth on the east fence so loud that Tiny hides inside after hanging out with me on the back porch until then. Yogi doesn't care, except to hve to come investigate when he hears a noise and he had been inside.

Partly cloudy, possibility of rain later. Wind is not enough to keep the flies off, so it's pretty annoying an hard to type and concentrate out here. Am hoping neighbor gets wifi fixed today and offers me the new passcode and router name, so I can do the internet stuff indoors again.


Feeding Tiny...we're still working out the system. The "meatball" sized stuff hasn't worked out quite as expected; I soaked the food for a while last night (6 or 7 hours?) and it eventualy got sticky and swollen and mushy, and I made little meatball-like chunks, which wouldn't relaly stick together when picked up. So I put them in the toaster oven for a while on low so it would dry them a bit and hopefully make them more likely to stick. It did dry them, but they still didn't stick very well. We used that experiment for breakfast, and it was a lot easier than the spoon method, but it was still very messy.


Sitting with Tiny afterwards worked for longer, though we had to shift around a few times as she got wiggly, and kept sliding down cuz she wants to lay flat or just plain get up and away. Yogi came over for attention instead of just moping, though, so that's an improvement, even if it didn't last long each time. (he was probably really trying to get us to come out and play, which is normal routine, and we did that afterward but he's used to it right after noms).

There's lots of birds around now, and Yogi is still trying to catch them even though most are way way over his head. He doesn't even seem to notice the ones walking on the ground, just the faster-moving ones flying between trees. He's even totally ignored a white cat that was stalking a bird, while he was dancing between trees trying to catch birds well over *my* head. he doens't jump, just runs back and forth looking up (and running into things like trees, me, Tiny, etc while doing it).

There's a very noisy crow or raven that caws nastily whenever the cats are in the yard hunting, but so far Yogi has not connected that, or he'd run out here everytime he hears it. He does sometimes, but he's looking up at the bird, not out in the yard where the cat(s) is (are).

I have a couple more pics but the camera is not detected by the laptop right now. Card readers are detected but "disappear" or lockup when trying to read a card. Wierd cuz the cables work, and different ones make no difference. Same USB port works fine with the trackball. So far the only port that always works with it is the one the wifi has to be on (cuz it only works on that one, too). I think there is something strange wrong with the laptop's USB chips or whatever, where streaming or relatively continuous types of data like wifi and file access simply dont work on anything except the one port. There's only two ports physically, even with teh dock (whcih has a lip that deliberately covers one port on the back, the wifi port, and reroutes it to a port on the dock instead), even though there's about 8 in device manager. :/ But the rerouted port doesn't work with cam or card reader or wifi either. So anyway, have to disconnect the wifi to get the pics up, and it can take a while to "find" and reconnect with the distant open one, so I will wait till I lose that connnection again to do it.

 

[amberwolf]

Evoforce came by yesterday evening, and we had fun chatting, rambling, and eventually riding around the neighborhood.

End of the get-together finally arrived, though I hadn't realized *how* late it was, and Evoforce offered me a ride to the grocery store (partly so I could take a ride in his Leaf EV, which is really nice!).

We got to the store, and it was a few minutes after they'd closed...somehow I'd lost a whole hour or so, cuz I thought it was just after 10pm, when actualy it was after 11pm. that meant I'd missed Tiny's meds time by about an hour, but we were already out so we went up a little farther and got to the one still open...



Now....when he arrived earlier in the evening, we tried out the whole doggie greeting thing to bring Tiny and Yogi outside to meet him, but Tiny was having a bad day and couldn't stand up well, so when she got excited on the leash and then Yogi ran her over trying to be first to the door on his leash, she couldn't get back up and then didn't want to try, and she was upset with the whole thing and kept barking angrily at him out in the front sidewalk. So while Yogi was happy with Evoforce out there, he probably would not have been once we were in the house, becuase Tiny was unhappy, and he's protective of her and follows her lead on people where inside the house and backyard is concerned.

So I wound up having to get Yogi into the bedroom, then help Tiny up and walk to the bedroom where she could rest on the bed, and just kept checking on them while he was here. When we left I let them out so they could roam around again while he wasn't in the house, and Tiny was a lot better at that point, having recovered her confidence and not being run over by Yogi again.

Feeding and meds time being passed, I expected the monsters to be super excited about dinner, but they were much more interested in smelling everything all over agian now that I was back, though I'm sur ethey did that a lot while we were gone.

So it took a little longer and was closer to 1am before I could get them fed and watered and Tiny her meds, which is pretty late for her. :/ My fault for not keeping track fo the time better.


This morning we got everything back on schedule, though because it's been raining Tiny had not gone outside for the morning poopies, and feeding was interrupted for her to go out and do that. I had to put her harness on her though, and help hold her up, cuz she got shaky and tired halfway thru the process. Then we sat there and rested a bit, and then went back in for the rest of breakfast.

Just to make sure she gets her meds all down, I now mix them up with just a little bit of wet food and dribble of water, then let her lick up the little cup of them while I hold it just under level with her sitting chin height. Then when she's done with that and I'm sure they're down, we work on breakfast itself.

The system we've kinda got down now is that at the end of one meal, I put her cup and a half of dry kibble and a bit of wet food for flavor in a small plastic tub (used to be for sour cream), and fill it to the rim with water. That then goes in the fridge till the next meal, and I warm it up just a little in the microwave to make it smellier which makes her want it more. Then i have a second empty tub I hold in my left hand under her chin, while I hold heaping tablepoon-sized squished-together chunks of the food in my right and let her eat those from my hand, with the spillover going into the lefthand tub.

Mostly, this has little spillover, but she doesnt' try to lean down or lay down and find tidbits between bites this way, and stays sitting up thru all of a meal, which is the goal.

When she's done then I quickly wipe my hands on a towel I keep ther efor the purpsoe, and get down there with her before she lays down, and pull her up back first against me, so her shoulders are even with mine, and her paws are over my forearm, with her back feet/legs/bottom against the base of the cabinet next to the doorway. Then I am sitting upright agianst her back holding her as upright as I can manage, and we just relax there for as long as she will tolerate it. Sometimes taht's 3 or 4 minutes, and sometimes it's as much as 10-12 (rarely).


Then she's squirmy and wants to get away, so we go walk around the yard if she will do it. Sometimes she's weak and won't go any farther than the corner spot next ot the grave where I removed that tree to move to the side yard, and just plops down there. When possible I get her to sit there instead of lay there, but mostly at that point she's not having any of it and doesn't want me to hold onto her, just wants to lay down and rest.


Usulaly during this whole process, Yogi watches us trying to figure out why tiny is getting hand-fed and hugged, and he's not. Sometiems he'll come up and lay close enough for me to pet him too, but mostly he plays lonely-dog and lays just out of reach, and stares at us with his paws spread out to either side of his head on the floor.

he's all happy agian once we get up and go outside, but since Tiny is usually not up to playing he's still depressed, even if I try to play he's not really into it for more than a minute or so, usually less.


My neighbor's wifi issue turned ot to be a connection out at the pole rather than his modem/router, so it's fixed and I'm back online "reliably" we hope, without having to sit outside to do it( thouhgh I'm out here now cuz of the dogs).


And that's pretty much the state of things right now.

 

[amberwolf]

And sicne I got them onto the ocmputer finally, here's the pics from yesterday I couldn't get uploaded.

First is Yogi helping to trim the knots off the base of the east-porch mulberry:



Tiny was camped out there and decided to move closer to the tree to get in his way so he left, and she remained looking triumphant.


So he gave up and had a nap by the west porch mulberry.
View attachment 6

This is the damage so far:


Tiny came to see me but then decided it was too much effort, and laid down for a nap:



Yogi went back for some more branches (even though there' splenty of them laready cut or chewed off the trees, scattered around the yard from their playing with them).


Was gonna get a cute pic of Tiny slurping from the faucet waterer, but just as I pressed the button Yogi barked at something and Tiny had to run off to see what it was.


So while this isn't hte same pic I would'v egotten, it'll have to do, from when she came back and slurped some more.
View attachment 1

A bit later, she gave up on wandering around, and had a nap on the porch...and slid off cuz she ws right on the edge.

 

[amberwolf]

It's been quite an exhausting few days. It feels like it's been weeks, but it's only been since Saturday....

I'm still exhausted, so...I may have events out of order, or completely missing some; I'm not really sure exactly.


Tiny is not doing well at all. Her weakness progressed to the point on Monday morning at first light that she didn't even have enough energy to walk even a few feet before collapsing in a panting heap, but she sure kept trying.

I tried putting my long rubber mats down in the house to help her, but whiel it gives her good purchase for paws, so she doesn't slip, she just can't walk, or evne remain standing.

We went back to the vet, they did more xrays to be sure it wasn't pneumonia getting worse, and foudn it actually appears to be gone, so I guess the Clavamox did it's job quick (though she still is taking it, for at least another week).

They still don't have test results back on the Myasthenia Gravis (MG) or other things, but they took more blood and will do the "Desert Panel" of disease tests, too.



One thing they stressed is that most of their patients with MegaEsophagus (ME) don't make it past 3 months at the outside, and some pet parents bring them back for euthanasia within a couple of weeks, and it isn't for lack of trying and caring and spending every moment with them trying to help...just that there are so many complications and ramifications of the ME, not to mention any OTHER problems that may be CAUSING the ME that have their own complications....


For instance, with MG, which is a strong possibility given her sudden deteriorating weakness following the cough and ME and other things, progressive weakness can make it difficult to even breathe. It doesn't always happen the same way in every patient (animal or human) but in cases like hers, where it is so sudden and drastic, the outlook is not very good.


I'm not giving up, not while there is any chance she could recover. Right now we are trying Prednisone as it's a common treatment for MG. It's a low dose now so it can be easier to wean her off if it doesnt' work or turns out to be conflicting with something else that has to be tried. No signs of change yet but none are expected quickly.


The hardest part, physically, for both of us, is that since she is not capapble of walking herself, I have to lift her while she moves her legs, and we "walk" around like that for very short bursts, becuase I really can't do that very long, a few steps sometmes, a few dozen feet others. Even if she could do it longer (which she cant') I couldn't. And holding her up while she poopies just doesn't work.

So instead of the Bailey Chair I was going to build after the vet visit, I had to build a wheelchair to sling her in, since I only had time for one, between her feeding and watering process, which takes up to a couple of hours, depending on how she feels and if she'll sit still with me holding her (usually not). And since I can hold her upright, more or less, for the feeding, but I can't carry her around, t--he choice wasn't really a choice, as to which project to do.

I'll link the thread on the wheelchair project in here after I write it and post it, there's pics of variations tried; I don't yet have pics taken of the latest modifications, and some of those will go away as it gets altered more and more to fit her better. With luck, I can turn it into a combination wheelchair and bailey chair, as it is presently serving both functions but not very well for either.

http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=68997


Now that I ahve a way to move her around, mroe or less, we can go in and out and around the house, and she's not stuck in just one place all the time except when I find the strength to essentially carry her by the harness.

She doesnt' get to move around nearly as much as I think she'd like to, and she can't go chasing after things, ro play with Yogi much (they can still play a form of tugowar with the sticks, but it doesn't last more than a minute or less at a time; I'd like to get vidoe but haven't been able to yet, it's too short).


Feeding...I have to be careful not to give her very much at a time. Sometimes that's only a few tidbits (meatball-sized), and sometimes its' several. More than that, and she's very likely to puke it up before it gets down to her tummy, whcih means it can get in her lungs cuz the stuff that should stop that doesnt'work anymore. Thus, she has to get food frequently, but that also means sitting up for 10-20 minutes afterward each time.

Sometimes the meatballs just don't work out, and liquid may end up being a better option, for her to lap up. I have never found my blender after the fire, didn't use it much so never got antoher, so I need to go to Goodwill and see if they have one that works for cheap, that can take kibble dogfood and some water and turn it into a really fine puree with no chunks.

Canned food doesn't relaly work, cuz it's just way to unconcentrated nutrition. She'd have to eat like 7-10 cans of some of the foods for every meal, so that's like up to 20 cans of food a day. She sipmly couldn't handle that much food. Even if I could sit ther ewith her 24/7 just feeding, it wouldn't all get in there. So blended kibble, which is only about 2 cups or so of volume once it's soaked in water overnight in the fridge, is the only practical solution out of what I have access to (and money for).




Watering...this is just as hard as feeding, as it requires all the same precautions. Too much water toof ast and she coughs and splutters. Too little and she will dehydrate. Right now I'm still trying to find the balance between them.


Pottytime....wow this is way harder than I expected. She literally holds it in until it can't stay in anymore, and she won't go while we're out ther etogether, cuz it isn't like she is used to, little miss independence just doesn't want me nearby while she does her thing.

IF I have her int eh wheelchair, and walk away to let her be alone, she will eventually pee. But it can take a lot of coming to her and leaving her before she'll do it.. I can't just leave her or she will either try to get out of the chair or she will try to drag the chair herself to get to wher I am and get stuck in the process, hung up on something the side of the wheels catch on (lantana, trees, etc).

Pooping...I cant' get her to do it. I think she *can* do it, but is choosing not to--holding it in. After basically 24 hours of not pooping, I decided to intervene. I found I have to sit her up and "hang" her but from the wheelchair handles, and wait till I see her poopy swell the anus out, and then squeeze her butt on either side of it and squish some out. Wait a few mnutes and do that again, etc.



Today was really hard on her. I had to go back to work this morning, so I did all I could to prepare her for the day without me, and set her up with a comfy spot with pillows to hold her front end up higher than the back (whcih helsp keep drool and whatnot from causing coughing/spluttering). Unforutnatley she prefers to have her head lower than her body, and that is a surefire way to induce problems.

I knew she would not stay there, but I had hoped she would stay long enough to ensure the stuff that made it to her tummy got settled in real good...but she didn't. I came home to find her with stuff smeared on her forelegs, face, and paws, which looked like she had puked and re-eaten it several times over the distance she had covered from where I left her to where she was when I got home about 8 hours later. A bath ensued, and walk around the yard in her wheelchair while she dried off in the warm evening.

It just showed me what I knew to be the case already, adn that I can't leave her home...I'll have to take her to work with me, and take the trike into the store so she can stay in the kennel on it while I"m working, so at breaks and lunchtime (and any other time I can at least check on her just for a moment), I can make sure she's ok, and feed and water her a little bit. There's simply not time to be able to go home for lunch and do it, even if I had an hour (and I only get half of that). If she's right there, *maybe* I can do it during the time available.

I already asked my boss (well, I actually just said that I have to bring her in with me, because I don't really ahve any other acceptable choices) when I arrived at work today, and she said that we'll make it work, whcih is a good sign. How well it'll actually work, we'll jsut ahve to wait and see.


I don't really want to think about it...but the probability exists that it will not be a very long-term situation, given her extreme weakness already, after only days.


Pics below from the last few days.

 

[ohzee]

Damn amber sure sounds like you have had an exhausting week. Sounds like you are doing everything in your power and them some.

Just keep that up and go day by day. I will be thinking about you guys. Hope your girl pulls thru.

 

[amberwolf]

So...after everyone working with me today being really helpful in letting me go check on Tiny as often as necessary, I started my half-hour "lunch" around 530pmish, so I could actually sit down and try to get some water and food into Tiny. That didnt' work out so well, as her breathing has been getting worse all day, since the morning, more throaty/hacky for the cough (but no rattly lung sounds, so it's rpobably only in her throat).

So she has been getting more and more pukey, all day long, and it's been harder and harder to keep stuff down. Well, that's what happened about halfway thru, after a few sips of broth...up it all came. I had to wait a bit and then try again, but she was weakened by that effort (it's a pretty rough vomit; I've never had another dog that had as much trouble as she does, and it sounds awful...not a retch, but an almost howl-whine as her diaphragm not only pushes her stomach contents out, but also the air in her lungs at the same time...and this happens about 5 or 6 times before it's over).



Side note: she'd vomited up everything (mostly chicken broth from boiled chicken breast) from all of this morning past about dawnish, not long before we headed off to work, something like around 1130am-ish...not enough time to give her anything else and have it stay down during the trip. So I left an hour early to get to work with enough time to sit down with her and get something in, if not much, and we did...but it all came back up while I was away from her, working at the register, because she won't stay in positions that don't keep her head above the rest of her, if she has any option about it.



By then, my time was up, but I couldn't just leave her in this state, with nothing, that swhy I brought her with me so I can acutally help her. The others working with me were ok with that....so I kept trying, but it started to become really obvious that she was not doing very well at all. I called the rescue people, and we talked, but there really isnt' anything thye or the vet can do (the vet basically came down to eitehr wait for test results, eta unknown, or give up on her, and certainly seemed to keep harping on the giving up, the last time we were there)...other than keeping her at the vet and starting an IV drip for fluids, and a feeding tube forced down her throat, keeping her drugged up so she doesn't move... Not really an option, just keeping her alive but drugged up like that, unable to interact, etc.

So I talked to my coworkers, and someone else came in to finish my shift, and to take my shift for tomororw, too, so I can be her with her for this crisis, at least. We'll see about the days after that after we see what tomorrow (also my birthday, as it happens) brings (maybe a present for Tiny in the form of a miracle cure...I wish!).

The woman that came in to help me out looked like she was ready to cry for Tiny..I already had off and on, and have done so more since then, cuz I really am not sure how long she can last at this rate if she can't keep at least fluids down. She's already dehydrated some, cuz her skin on her snout doesn't snap back instantly like it should.

So after anoher hour, maybe and a half or so of working with TIny and letting her rest before the trip home, to try to keep some of her fluids down, we finally got all the stuff back on the trike and went home. I think we got here just about two hours ago.

Yogi was superhappy to see us, Tiny tried to turn around in the kennel and get out, but couldn't, I had to stop her so i could back her out, and have her sit against me while I held her up and pushed the trike away so she could lay down there instead, until I got her chair off the trike and put back together (wheels come off for the trip, I used QR axles partly for that reason).


I wasted about 20 minutes trying to figure out any other solution than using her chair as a sling, with her but on a little stool so she's not hanging entirely from the chair, but strapped in so she can't easily get out of it or fall, so I can get her fluids in tiny increments.

Iv'e been using "cook timer", a free program off google code site, to time out 3-minte (last night I used 5) wait times between slurps of broth for her (about a table spoon for each one), in hopes that it is long enough between them for stuff to settle into her stomach before too much builds up in her esophagus, and makes her puke, or spills into her trachea, ro wahtever is that makes her gag and retch.

We've been going at it now for around 45 minutes, and gotten down about a cup or so of broth. Tha'ts empty now so now we wait and see what stays down.

The problem is, she's gotta stay strapped into that chair for at least 20-30 minutes, based on experience so far, AFTER having already spent 45 minutes in it, and she's already really wiggling around trying to figure out how to weasel her way out.

So, more later after I deal with that.

 

[amberwolf]

long story short: test results positive for myasthenia gravis. meds will arrive special delivery tomorrow morning sometime, or i gues that's today alreayd now.

i hope they give me the best birthday present ever and make a miracle cure for her...though i will be more realistic and hope they jsut at least help her enough to be a little functional for at least minutes at a time, instead of not even seconds.


i've been spending the last 3 horus or so now i guess lost track of time, but every 3 minutes with 15-30 minute breaks in tere to let it soak in, giving her about a tablesppon of water and broth to rehydrate her. using a program called cooktimer to beep at me to wake me if i doze so i don't miss a time, and to ensure i keep monitoring her to stop her pukies if she starts. i found if i catch it before the retch she can be guided into stopping and keeping it down. but i hve to watch cuz if i hear it it's usually too late.

so far she hasnt' lost antyhing for the last 3 hours, so taht's a nice miracel itself.

but sometimes it comes after that point, when she moves around and starts havng to breathe harder and the pantng triggers it i think.

so i also last ngiht had put the window ac unit back up, and set it to 70f whcih is wasteful but she gets hot a lot easier than she should, so that plus the boxfan blowing on her keeps her cool enough to not have to pant, which helps to keep her from retching up food and water she realy really needs to keep down.

wish i had a stomach cork to stick in there and help her with it.

 

[Evoforce]

Golly, I hope it all works out and she gets better with the meds. It was good getting a chance to meet up with you again. I enjoyed riding bikes and reconnecting again. It was a nice comfortable ride on your trike. Time flies when there is so much to talk about and all that has gone on before the last get together. Glad to hear your wifi is back to a better state and I'm wishing you the best of luck with Tiny. Sincerely, Ed

P.S. Isn't it your birthday soon? Happy Birthday!

 

[amberwolf]

thanks--yes it is today actually. best present so far is that Tiny is doing better than yesterday, about the same as last night/this morning so far...but the only way to do that is to keep her in the chair strapped in, head up on pillows, butt down on a stool (cuz she'll just wiggle and slide and end up puking up stuff if I try to get her to a real sitting position with butt on floor), and every 3-5 minutes give her one little pinky-first-joint-sized tidbit of boiled chicken, or water, or broth. Given the amounts she needs, and the amounts that stay down (especially since though she isn't normally a drooly dog, she is so hungry and thirsty that she slobbers constantly during this process, so I think half of the water she gets is wasted as slobber, and she's not getting anywhere near the amount of water she usually would get), that's essentially a 24 hour activity.

I think I may have to see about taking an unspecified-time leave of absence at work...but I don't have enough PTO to cover much, and I will not have the money to do it without that. I'm probably going to have to start a GoFundMe or whatever it's called to see about raising the money for rent and utilities and stuff for a month or two, at least, while I take care of her, if she stays like this and sticks around with us.


She's just under 100lbs right now, or was as of Monday...she's probably lost some since then cuz she has eaten almost nothing that stayed down--after 2 days she finally had to poopy again this morning, and normally that's every 10-12 hours). Now I'm just concentrating on keeping her water intake going and keeping that down her, so it is separate from food and separated by as long periods as I can manage. And her meds have to be separate from both, and from each other, so I know which meds she needs to retake (or can) if she pukes anything back up.

The easiest way to get water into her right now is ice cubes. I let tehm sit out in a bowl long enough to "rot" so they crunch easy, and she chomps them once or twice and swallows the pieces. It's a lot less probelm for coughing that way, vs liquid water, partly cuz she tilts her head up to eat ice cubes, and has to tilt it down a lot to drink liquids.

As long as I can keep her from puking stuff up, she's got a good chance...but if she cant' keep it down she's gonna either die of complications of dehydration (not yet a danger, but a possibility) or she's gonna slowly starve (given her chunkiness that's not much of a danger yet either).

One of the hardest things just now is taht she won't sit still in the chair after a while, and I understand perfectly, but when I try to help rearrange her, she fights me and tries to stay exactly in the position she is in...which as soon as I stop she starts to move around again but she ends up in positions that make her mroe likely to puke. :/

So here's some pics from yesterday and today from teh camera, and from the phone from several differnet days.

 

[amberwolf]

I have worked out a fairly reliable method of feeding her in this chair, since a bailey chair wwon't work cuz she can't/wont' hold herself upright. It's basically lke you see in the pics above, where her butt is lower than her middle, and her head above that. It is not nearly as good as pure upright would be...but it is as good as we can reliably get without her ability & cooperation. She's usually reclining to one side or the other but this doesnt' appear to affect getting food and water down. As long as I do not feed or water more often than 3-5 minutes, with nothing bigger than a smallish ice cube for water, and a pinky-end-joint sized piece for food, and I don't give her anything while she has the throaty rumble, which happens periodically, after she's coughed a bit, then she will keep stuff down.

If I break that routine and give too soon or too large, almost invariably it causes coughing which triggers puking, so I have had to simply will myself to ignore her insistence on getting more or sooner. I also don't offer a second time until the next timed round if she refuses the first time, cuz it means she does know it wont' work but she wants it anyway and will take it if offered again..then bad stuff.


So far we've only had two small pukings today, but that's a setback of nearly a half day on getting stuff into her, including the wait times I must use before I can try again.

She's not nearly as dehydrated as she got after I had to work Tuesday and Wed and was unable to do all this for her (and before I'd worked out this system), but she is still not where she needs to be. Pedialyte brougth over along with the MG meds shoudl help, once I get enough of it down her, but it takes a while--first I had to freeze it into not-quite-full ice trays, and being salty it takes longer to freeze, but thankfully it doesn't freeze very hard so it can be given to her right away instead of waiting for it to "rot" if I don't catch it at the right time.

Right now she's dozing but I've been drinking lots of caffeine/suger to stay awake so I am too awkae to doze though i'm super exhasuted, so am typing this up while i wait for her to wake for more fluids. I'm not sure how comprehensible all this wil be later.


mmm. she woke up so i had to stop typing and come back to it after her dinnertime meds, which is now 5 things.

there's the phenobarbitol for her seizures, 1.25 tablets. she'll actually take that straight, though she hesitates, but since it mixes with water easy i usually just put it in some for her to lap up with a bit of flavoring or use chicken broth.

then the clavamox, which is a set of two different sized tablets, and they are the hardest thing to get her to take, cuz no matter what i put them in, they get some surface exposed and it gags her with the taste. breaking them up and mixing with various things hasn't been any better, so i'm back to the easiest for her method of doing them whole, stuffed inside a gobbet of pate style canned dog food. this is for any pneumonia/etc that might still be hanging around.

then the prednisone which is also easy like the pb, just one little tablet. this is for the mg, but also for her lungs.

then the new one pyridostigmine for the mg. so far i't's been easy, it's a litltle larger tablet.

then hte hip and joint tablet, which also has some vitamins in it, and that's a huge one but she normally eats them straight, though now i have to dip them in the canned forod for the flavor first.

before this past week, i could simply have put evertying in her dinner bowl with her food and some water, and away she'd go...though the clavamox wouldn't have worked that way most likely. now it's one at a time, hoping she just swallows and doen't chew them, so the'll not be bitter and will go down easier.


but mostly...even when i doze i still have to keep an ear open for any coughing cuz it can lead to retching and then all the stuff she ate/drank comes back up and doesn't do her anygood, and takes up to hours to redo, after a wait time, making it harder on her cuz for all that time she still doesn't have much in the tummy to digest or process.


we're slowly working up to larger bits of food, am about at thumb joint sized actually rather than pink joint for much of today i guess, but it's slow going, and i don't want to go further than this till she gest past the coughing...which probabl ywon't happen till she doesn't do any puking for a good long while...days, more, who knows. she *needs* more food than i can give her in teh time we have in a day, even being her 24 hours for her, cuz i'm having to concentrate on liquids intake to get her back to normal on that first, as it's more important. she can afford a little weight loss if her body burns the fat first, though i don't know if it wil or not. probably not, with no real exercise, it'll probably take muscle tissue first, and so walking again if it ever happens is gonna take some rehab work with teh chair to hold her up while she relearns it.

i guess i'm rambling again. need a nap but we're in the middle of feeding now; she's wiating impatiently for teh next bit of food, which had to wait cuz she was coughing and i have to hold her head up when she does that or she can gag, and then retch.... i also need food so my tummy says, but i gotta wait till she's done with this feed cycle and i' msure it'll stay down before i dare leave her.

anyway...more later, posting this one now so i don't forget if i doze and smack the wrong buttons or keys. again.

 

[amberwolf]

Rest of the night after above, Tiny had some issues, mostly puking cuz of coughing too hard, then having to go thru the feeding and watering from the last 2-3 hours again each time, and I got so tired I just kept dozing until the alarm dinged each few minutes and gave her something then dozed again...sometimes she was still asleep so I just dozed instead of waking her.

At one point, I woke to find her chair empty,

whcih she'd been strapped into for suport...and her harnesses just hanging there empty, too. At first I thought it was just another nightmare (cuz I've already had more than a few about that sort of thing in a bunch of ways), but then I realized I was really awake (barely) and then I started to move to get up and then I saw her laying on the fbehind the chair watching me, just resting.


How the heck she got out of the harnesses, I cannot imagine, cuz one is ziptied to the other at the sternum, and the rear one goes around her back legs/pelvis and then around in front of those legs and tummy, and is hooked into the chair handles above, *and* had the "seat belt" thru it at it's front. Then the front one goes around her front legs, with a sternum support band, and clips together over her shoulders, with a carabiner holding that to the d-ring of the rear harness. It's pretty secure, and I can lift her bodily wiht it (momentarily; can't carry her cuz my knees/etc).



Anyway, she did get out of it, and it must've taken quite the effort I'm surprised didnt' wake me (but I'm exhausted, running on caffieenated soda and the need to be her for and with her). I couldn't imagine how she could have had the energy or ability to do that.


Then, after arranging her pillows for her so she could sleep on the bed instead, we skipped the rest of the watering/feeding I would've done cuz both of us were too tired for it (she was nodding off again even while I was moving her onto the bed). Yogi was up here too, so I dozed off for a long time holding a bit of each of them (since neither is really the snuggly sort to be held onto), awakened only by Tiny's occasional cough or movement, to find her trying to put her head down low, which is bad, and having to move her back, then both of us redozing... Then I woke to a miracle....or a dream, wasnt' sure which.


[youtube]i1Ch6hm1Bfg[/youtube]


Below is a crosspost from the wheelchair project thread, partly for the summary for those "just joining us" if any are, and partly so I don't retype it all:


Alrighty, here's a little summary for anyone that hasn't read the other thread stuff, for which I don't blame them; it's huge. :/

In about 4 days, from early last week, she went from being a little under the weather cuz she had an occasional cough to coughing enough to need a vet, finding out that she had light (walking) pneumonia and getting treatment for that, and in the xray process of that finding out she had MegaEsophagus, which can be dealt with relatively easily, with some care in feeding and giving water.

Then, the night of the vet visit, but afterward, she began to get so weak she would fall if she tried to run. Then she couldn't get up wihtout help, and was unsteady walking. Then she couldn't even try to do that. It looked really bad. So we setup another vet visit...they did some more tests, saw her pneumonia was gone already, so not that. They didn't yet have the test results back from the visit a few days prior, so they could only say that it was more than possible that she had the Myasthenia Gravis that the test was for.

A bunch of traumatic stuff (to me) later, the test came back positive and meds were delivered. Gave her some right away, then later that night, and didn't see any change yet, but not surprising. That's where this post starts up top.



Woke up after a doze this morning to find her standing near the foot of the bed, when just before I dozed off she'd been on her stack of pillows (to hold her head and front end higher than her back end so stuff runs down toward her tummy and stays there). It felt like a miracle, or a dream.
View attachment 9

She then walked off, on her own, whiel I hurried to get up (hard to do quickly) and follow her, in case she fell. She was wobbly (whcih considering she's eaten and kept down maybe an average of 1/20th of what she would normally have, for several days, and maybe 1/8 the water, is not surprising), but she made it to the back room and sat there instead of going out the back door cuz Yogi was in the way staring at her like "WTF is this? Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

After I got him to go out, she got up and followed, unsteadily, then plopped down for a rest on the back porch.

I was still in a kind of euphoric shock, becuase I did not expect anything like this, and it gave me a hope that might not be real.

After a while of resting there, she insisted on getting up on her own, so she could do her potty patrol, where she checks stuff out and picks which spot to do her thing in today (it's almost never the same twice in a row). At some point in there I had to hold onto her harnesses (one front and one back) cuz she was unstable, but she still insisted on walking around and finishing her business before she'd go back inside (and it was getting warm out there, mid 90sF in the sun and low 80sF in the shade, still early morning, not much after 8am).


Then she was all done and needed to lay donw for a while, and we did, under a tree, then moved to the porch for a long while, where we did meds,

View attachment 7

then came in and camped out on the couch with her butt on the spot where the cushion goes but not with it there, so it is lower, and then her frnt paws over the arm of the couch and head on a pillow on them. Keeps her as upright as she gets without holding her in place (which doesn't work well), and she'll stay there, mostly, for a long time. So then we did water, and a little bit of food.




Since we went back to that off and on throughout the day, we tried a few positions and supports, eventually finding one that gets "the sigh", and a few that almost induced the pukies (like the one where she's laying opposite direction away from teh couch arm).


View attachment 3





Unfortunatley one side effect of the MG meds is diarrhea, and she got the squirmies for that so we had to go outside, whcih we did in the wheelchair I made for her a few days ago, so she can walk herself but can't fall over and if all else fails I can wheel her around.. It was a lot hotter so she wore out way faster, and we didnt' do a tour, just in the shaded area near the house except one little jaunt she insisted on before she would go potty.

Then she HAD to get water from the lixit faucet waterer setup for her above her head height, and I had to keep stopping her from drinking too much at a time. (needs a timer on it so it shuts off after so many seconds, then won't reactivate for several minutes). I know she's terribly thirsty, but if she gets her fill she'll choke on it before it gets into her stomach, cuz of the ME. So it has to come in very small amounts, like an ice cube amount, with up to 3-5 minutes before the next one. If she coughs, its all on hold for a while, or she'll puke everthing back up from now to a while ago. Sometimes taht happens anyway.



Which leads back to the only problem she really has right this minute: if she can't stop coughing, which is quite possibly from aspiration of liquid, mostly drool or water, (or food), she won't be able to keep down enough water or food to survive.

At that point, it's a question of what to do...keep trying what I'm doing, or more "heroic" stuff like IV fluids and feeding tubes, till she's "better" and can eat and drink on her own without that problem (which may never happen cuz of the ME), or...well, I'm sure y'all can figure out what lots of poeple tell me I should do.

But Tiny saved MY life at least twice, probably several times, just by being herself, and I owe her a debt I can't imagine not at least TRYING to repay.

Already she can walk around and do nearly-normal stuff.

If she was eating and drinking normal amounts, she'd be very nearly back to normal activities and life, other than not slurping up all the water and food she thinks she needs. (and having to sit up straight as possible for at least 10-15 minutes after drinking or eating so it gets to her tummy).


All we need is a way to get her water and food into her without coughing enough to puke it all back up, preferably without it literally taking 24 hours a day to do it, but I'd be ok with that if I could get money for rent/etc some other way than a dayjob, so I could stay right there with her for it. (though if she didn't puke it back up it wouldn't take that long anyway, cuz she wouldn't need to redo more than half of her feedings/waterings)


We already have a message into the vets and the rescue to find out if there are any "doggie cough suppressants" she could take along with her other meds, but I haven't heard back yet.


Oh, and a coworker brought over a blender and I made some "dog food smoothie" for her, blend of the kibble she likes best out of what I have, and some peas and barley and chicken for extra flavor so she'd eat it for sure. It looks more like what's coming out hte other end right now with the MG meds, but at least it doesn't smell like that. She ate it right up, several spoonfuls before she decided she was done with eating, one every few minutes for a short while.




Mostly today I've had her up on that couch while I worked on improvements to the chair, and cleaning and washing stuff that's gotten soiled in various ways over the last week, in between feeding or watering her or just sitting with her. She did get up and come over or just go outside on her own several times, so I had to always keep an eye on her and could not leave the room for even a whole minute at a time without worrying she'd go adventuring and fail to be able to keep going.

There were qutie a few little poopy adventures cuz of the diarrhea, which is good in that it means she had the stuff in her to poop out, but bad in that it takes too much water and stuff with it, and in that the adventures used up a lot of her energy and got her heated up a lot even in the shade.


More videos (I only got a few adventures, most I was just worried about her and accompanying her, trying to make sure she'd actually poopy while in the chair, which she did as you'll see ):

[youtube]2Ta_AWm8W6Y[/youtube]

[youtube]WqwYYrpw_Yw[/youtube]

[youtube]t2-zRivzevI[/youtube]

[youtube]5C-t244pB3s[/youtube]

 

[amberwolf]

Today is...much better. At least for Tiny. I'm friggin' exhausted. :/ But happy.

Things could always go downhill, but this morning for dawn pooptrol she got up on her own and pawed at me like normal (well, less energetically) to let me know it's time to get up, cuz I'd dozed off and fell over on Yogi at some point (who was still asleep till after I'd gotten up already and was shambling out the door with Tiny).

I followed Tiny out after opening the bedroom door (been keeping it closed both so she won't wander off if I do doze like that, and to keep the cool air in the room (from the window AC) better than the doorway blanket/curtain does.), and she waddled on out (her gait is not quite normal, not unexpected) and stopped to look for the water bowl (whcih ahsn't been there for a week and a half, to ensure she can't guzzle and choke on it), and looked at me disgustedly when it wasnt' there, then continued out the back door and stopped for the faucet waterer...which I've got turned down to the lowest it can go and still work, which is a bare trickle. I think it might be at most 1gal/hour, and I don't think it's even that but I havent' measured it. It's to keep her from being so greedy with the water that she chokes, so it has a chance to go down before her esophagus fills up.

Anyway, after I called her away from the waterer, whcih she longingly looked back at several times but did come, she then proceeded to do the usual rounds except for no pooping, which given the issues with keeping stuff down yesterday was not a huge surprise. She did have plenty of pee (twice, actually), which is good, cuz it means enough water made it down to have to pass out.

She laid down in her usual spot for a bit, but then decided she was thirsty again and headed off for the lixit. I made her sit first and then let her have her fill, which took a good while, maybe 7-8 minutes, and then sat there with her leaning sideways against me with my legs around her butt and her forelegs over my right arm, with me on the porch stoop and her just beyond it on the ~6" lower ground. She did not want to be there but surrendered quicker than previously (she's learning that this is gonna happen and she's gotta tolerate it).

When it had been long enough that all that water probably had gone down ok, and she had no coughing or sputtering or throaty breathing, we went inside and I sat her on the couch in front of the doggie window-door like yesterday, in the most uprigth position she would stay in. Then we did meds, and breakfast, which was about 6 icecubes of blendered-pureed dogfood and the "chicken soup" made for her yesterday, along with more ice cubes of teh broth frm that, using 2 minutes apart for everthing.

There were no coughings during this, though some afterward but I tried making her lay a little on her side (mostly her head and neck) adn they stopped. Then she had a nap, and I did more cleaning...whcih continued thruoout the day while she mostly stayed there on the couch between adventures.

Every so often she'd do a round of the backyard, and head for the lixit, and generally I let her, after it had been more than a couple hours past breakfast, so it ougth to all be past the tummy by then and unable to be puked up no matter what else she did.

Good thing...cuz the second time she did that, she had just filled up when Yogi ran out the door past her at the tree, and straight to bhe back fence to bark at a car or truck speeding thru the alleyway...so Tiny turned to follow suit...but decided not to try to run an dinstead stood to bark, and got one bark out ok and a jet of water the next. That is the only pukies at all today so far!




About noonish we did a "lunch" for her (and snacks for Yogi so he wouldn't feel left out), of just pureed chicken soup this time, and she had a whole cup and a half of it (about the same as her dogfood breakfast would normally have been, of kibble), slurped up out of a bowl from the near-uprigth position, in 3 increments a few minutes apart. No coughing til the last one, so we broke off there and I put the rest away after the first little teensy "ahem" sound...no sense risking losing everything fo rone more slurp). Then a few ice cubes of broth.


That all worked out fine, with sitting there about 20 minutes afterward before she insisted on going out for potty, and this time did her poopies (semisolid...but gooey yellowbrown), and lots of pee. Then she went for the lixit and I didnt' let her simply because she already had a tummy full of food, and didnt' think it would be good given the previous days.

She went in, then we got her back on the couch, had to argue with her about it but she did it eventually with help. :/ Next to the word "obstinate" in the dictionary is a picture of Tiny. :lol:

One more round outside, then she decided she had to lay down int eh cooler bedroom instead of the couch in the back room, and she immediately went to sleep once I got her on the bed angled up on her pillows (which she will *almost* do on her own now),

Was a nice hour-long nap, so I contineud to do cleaning and stuff as i had a lot of things partway done, with a bbq timer in my pocket set for 2 minutes and just kept going back to check on her everytime it went off. When she woke she wanted to go out again, more pee, then more water, then right back to the nap in the bedroom.

Another hour or more of that and then out again, but no water, instead she just wandered around with me as i finished up all of what I was doing, interacting with her on everything. She got bored with my attention and went back to the bedroom, where Yogi had already gone a bit before, which woke him up and so he came out to see me. I grabbed the "indoor chuckit" fuzzy ball/ring and tossed it for him, and he went after it a few times, bringing it to me for "can I have it?" and then Tiny came out and snatched it up before he could, as I'd just tossed it...so he laid down and let her play with it for a minute, before seh got bored (she rarely grabs it more than once even under normal conditions, then just drops it and goes off to see what's interesting). Then it was outside time again....

In between other things, I have also been going out to set the water hoses on trickle and moving them from plant to plant cuz I haven't had time in more than a week, maybe two? for my normal morning routine of watering them all, and it's so hot (just about 100F in shade yesterday which means 30-40F more in the sun (lots more sometimes, esp at midday), nearly that today, similar all week) some looked like they were withering. :/

At one point, a neighbor waved and asked if I was ok, which I didn't understand but then they said I looked like I had been hit by a train and dragged thru a dirty flood...when I looked at myself I could see why. So I explained about Tiny, and that all that stuff on me was probably her puke and other stuff dried plus dirt/etc from cleaning house cuz I have been doing so much for so long that I hadn't realized I had not changed clothes or showered since I had gotten home that night from work early with Tiny, when i'd put on an old tshirt and sweatpants and promptly forgot about myself. :/

So while Tiny was napping, my next cleaning was myself, and then heating myself my day's meal. Usually I eat off and on all day if I'm home, but I don't want to make Tiny drool and choke on it from the smell of food, so I ahve only been eating when nto near her and not cooking fragrant stuff in the house. Also, Im out of all the premade food I'd usually have around, batch-cooked and frozen or refrigerated. So I moved the microwave out back each time to heat up the same thing each day since that night, which was to pour frozen mixed veggies (which I'm out of now, I think), ripped up bits of a ham (plenty left), and packaged shredded cheese (also out of now) all into a container and stick it in the microwave for about six minutes, then leave it until it cooled enough to eat (and when I was free for long enough to eat some of it). It takes me less than 2 minutes to get it all together and into the microwave, and is quick enough to eat, but it smells very strongly of cooked ham which is a very drooly smell. :/

Today I made the same thing, but I didn't move the microwave out cuz I wasnt' sure I could do it safely (used up way too much energy today, and am drinking hte last of my caffeinated soda (dr k from frys) right now to get more energy). I also didn't eat it outside, but since tiny has been so much better, I came to the bedroom with her and Yogi and sat down to type this and eat...slowly, cuz i keep finding myself dozing now that i'm sitting for the first time today other than when I was holding Tiny now and then.

Just as I typed the above, TIny woke up for another outside adventure, which was short...just pee and waterer, which she spent about 3 minutes at while Yogi chased all the invisible demons away from us.

I managed to also get Yogi to slurp a little at the waterer, but only while I had my hand on it...he's so gentle with it his tongue doesn't depress the (very very easy to depress) toggle, so it doesn't let water out for him except on accident every so often, and he give sup on it real quick if I let go of it even if my hand is stil lthere.

Tiny wen tot he bedroom on her own, but instead of lyaing on her own pillows, she wanted my spot, which she occasionaly does for no apparent reason..if I get up next to her she'll just leave, so it' snot cuz she wants to be closer to me, so I've learned over the last almost-two-years to just leave her be and sit/lay somewhere else, cuz I don't like making dogs move from where they pick to be.


I forgot where I was going with the above before the interruption, so I'll just leave it here with...I think we can make a routine that will let me work...as long as she can learn moderation with that lixit out there cuz I am afraid to leave them with no water supply should they somehow be stuck outside (can't imagine how, but...dogs are dogs), and I haven't figured out a water supply I can leave for them in the house yet. I will probably have to get another lixit and put it in the bathtub on a hose from one of the two showerheads (one is on a hose, and I use that, but I never use the fixed-in-place one, and there is a control to switch between them that the dogs can't reach).

Then if something goes wrong with it and it leaks, it can't flood the house cuz the bathtub has a safety drain.



But anyway, yeah, workable routine seems to be forming. If I'm lucky, it'll be set and working before Tuesday when I'm scheduled to go back to work. If it' snot set by tomoorrow, sunday, I'll have to call and ask for more days off, I guess the rest of the week, so we can work it out such that Tiny won't have to have me there doling out bits of food and water all day long just to keep nourished and hydrated enough to survive. Now that hse's moving around and able to do stuff on her own, and eat almost normal portions and keep them down, we ought to be able to set that up so we do it really early in the morning before I would ahve to be getting ready to go to work (anywhere from 10am thru 1 or 2pm) and then really late at night after I would get home (1030-11pm)

It will mean she won't be on a 12-hour meds schedule anymore, but rather more like 8 hours between nigth and morning, and 16 hours mornng and night, but at least it would be a schedule. I just hope it won't hurt her to have them like that, cuz I kinda have ot take what works doles out for schedules, or else lose on hours which I don't get enough of to make budget as it is.






alternative-energy note on the chicken soup: I used the crockpot with the glass lid, dark green crock, and wrapped it in a couple old black sweaters (except for the glast top), set it on top of the black aquarium under where the clothesline is, where the sun makes it really hot, just after the sun started to hit that spot...then I pre-heated the chicken, barley, peas, carrots, water, etc on the stove to boiling, then took the pot outside and poured it into the crockpot and closed the lid. When I checked on it at middayish, it was actually bubbling, though not before or after that. I was very surprised that it could get that hot even if it was already preheated, and iwth the blankets and towels hanging on the clothesline itself damping any breeze action, and the sweaters insluating the thing from shedding heat out to the sides or bottom. not sure how long it stayed that way, only saw it once cuz I was checking roughly every hour. But it did get nice and hot and it cooked everything fine all by the solar, by the time in the afternoon when the mulberry was shading that spot incompletely...would be much better with an actual heat box around it to trap the heat protected from any breezes or other air currents, and/or reflectors or absorbers to gather more heat. But it worked as it was.

 

[amberwolf]

Today's been pretty good, other than starting before first light after 3-4 hours light dozing off and on, and the 100F heat outside (it's down to 94F now..in the shade; still 115F in the sun). Been shading Tiny with an umbrella on our trips outside, but she's faster than I am now so I can't keep up with her. :/


(ME has a complication that causes them to not be able to shed heat as well, so she gets and feels hotter than before...might have to shave her sides as well as butt/tummy/neck/chin to help with that).

Diarrhea from teh new meds seems to have subsided; it's still stinky and yellowbrown like puppy poo, but it's pretty solid, though she's not straining to get it out like she usually would.


Her stubbornness at refusing to stay on her front-end-lifting pillows and such, and lay isntead with head down between her paws, is still causing her some pukies, after she goes out and drinks from the lixit. I think i am gonna have to turn that off when I'm not here, so she can't cause herself as much of a problem with it as otherwise.

I'm also gonna have to be sure that any watering I do doesn't leave puddles for her to slurp up, or really wet dirt to eat, cuz those are other things she tried today on the dawn pooptrol, in addition to going back to the lixit for what would've been gallons at a time if I'd let her.

Sh'es a little like Bonnie was, in her obsessiveness about some things; she starts licking the lixit for water and even though it's just running out of her mouth and sh'es spluttering and coughing it out she's still trying to get more, sometimes until I physcally move her head away from it. She's done the same thing with the water bowl in the past, before all this, slurpping it up until a burp comes and puts half of it back out wherever her face was pointed, then continuing to slurp untl the 2 gallon bucket is empty.

Or chewing on something utnil it's totlaly gone even when there are other things she could eat or chew nearby taht she likes better/wants more....cuz this one is already in her mouth. :/


And man...she hates the pillow under her, me making her stay on ti, putting her back on it, putting it under her fi she moves away from it, etc. Cuz I gotta do that for sometimes an hour after she's filled herself up or else it just comes back out slowly and she coughs until she retches it up anyway.

So limiting her intake severely vs what she *wants* to have (not *needs*) at any one moment is about the only guaranteed way to fix that aspiration/retch problem, which could give her pneumonia that could kill her sometime in teh future.

And no treats...cuz the same applies. After every treat, she'd have to sit still and uprigth for at least 15-30 minutes or more, to ensure it stays down where it's suppsed to be.

And me cooking stuff....wow what a problem that unexpectedly turned out to be. Of course it smells yummy...and she's used to being just outside the kitchn, in teh livingroom doorway, a few feet from me at teh stove/sink/etc. Well, teh yummy smells make her drool..whcih when she is laying down doesn't go the right way, so I have to make her sit on that couch arm in the back room, which is the length of the kitchen x 2 away instead...and that's far enough for her to keep going for down off and back to her usual spot, everytime I am not looking at her for a few seconds to a minute or so.

I can't fix the smell/drool, so I just have to teach her she's gotta stay there. I can't make her stay out of the room entirely cuz it doens't fix the smell, as it is in teh whole house, so she'd just be drooling and coughing in some other room instead.

Most likely the only thing that is gonna make her stay uprigth without me hodling her there is a bailychair like frame that straps her in, adn have it in the room so she dosn' t feel elft out nad havet o toruy to get ouand come see mel.

s

O jave some pics olo btu hav eo wait tll i'm not doizng onff l

 

[amberwolf]

Wow, I am not srue even i can figue out what the last part abvoe says.

Woke up from my unintentional nap (series of them actually) and cant' remember what ti was I was going to finish with up there.

But it comes down to saying this to those that told me I ought to have Tiny killed rather than try to help her (y'all know who you are), cuz now she's back to being (a still tired but improving rapidly) Tiny.














NEENER NEENER








Anyway, her final problem is the ME. Long as we can keep aspiration risks down to a minimum, she could last a long time.


I'm working out a design for a bailychiar thing, think I talked about it yesterday, but it'd be a frame to hold her up instead of a box surroudning her, partly cuz teh latter wouldn' work well with her obstinacy and partly cuz itll be a lot cooler for her to be in an open frame for the tiem it takes to eat, pause, eat, long wait to let it settl, maybe 45 minutes total. Then she's ok to get out and go settle down somewhere on pillows or something to raise her front end and head up for some 2 hours at least, after that, to guarantee that the food/water gets down past the tummy and cant' be retched up, before she can go off adn be whatever kind of active she wants.


I'm trying to decide how to modify and attach a pad/ramp under her chest, via a harness, that will not allow her to lay down flat with her head down on teh floor, but also won't stp her from walking around and doing stuff. If I can do that, and she'll leave it on, she can wear it when I can't keep an eye on her and it would help her to not aspirate stuff (drool, etc).

Cuz she's so obstinate about not staying on the pillows/ etc that while I can make her do it while I'm here, she ain't gonna do it if I'm not.