day 8 (of 20) and some high-fiber yummies

Apparently it’s all business as usual for the Hunn. She’s at the point where she has the vet figured out (today was day 8). Cameron takes her every day, but I usually call him about 15 times for updates - I’ve heard she walks directly to the scale and climbs up then sits so she can be weighed. She LOVES the staff and will follow the willingly to the back, where I’ve been told she greets everyone and then lays down on a bed that’s under the tech’s desk. Yesterday and today she hopped up on the table where they give her the twilight gas without being asked. I think it probably has something to do with the fact that when she’s coming up from the anesthetic her favorite tech sits with her and pets her “so she doesn’t have a traumatic wake up experience” and then she gets hand fed. I wish I could wake up like that – Cameron usually just throws my phone at my head and gripes about how much he hates the alarm and immediately goes back to sleep. She’s also being awesome about taking her pills; I hide them in cheese that I’m sure she can’t smell , but she eats them anyways, so far it’s just an anti inflammatory, some low grade antibiotics and an anti-nausea. They made noise about prednisone, but that stuff terrifies me. She took it when she was younger for allergies and she was manic. Also, someone I know took it and it damaged her heart.

Last night on our walk she was greeting strangers really exuberantly, and it dawned on me that if she can’t smell them she has no way of knowing they’re not Cameron. So all she wants to do is walk around outside and look hopefully at people coming up the street towards us. Aside from getting really bored with our block, as she doesn’t want to leave it, just pace up and down in front of the building, its freakin cold out there. So I drag her back in and she does the “daddy’s not home” dance which entails pacing around our apartment and whining, periodically licking the door. The only hope for distraction is the ball, and even that’s not engaging enough. Tonight I’m going to try juggling, maybe 3 balls will work.

So after work yesterday we went to the grocery store for fiber to give honey. They also told us not to give her any antioxidants as they could interfere with the radiation, so we’re pillaging the store trying to find the highest fiber foods with the lowest antioxidant content, except they really don’t print that on the box, do they? Whatever, $150 of fruits and vegetables later we’re half way home when we look at each other and say “DUH – Metamucil” in concert. But I’m pretty sure she will be allergic to Metamucil. I mean, she’s allergic to everything else (all meat besides fish and duck, all grains except quinoa and rice, dairy is ok and so are veggies and fruits), why stop there? But she appears to really like dried apricots, so I think we’re home free. And the vet clarified for us that he meant antioxidant supplements, roughage is a-ok.

I really hope this tumor shrinks soon – I’m running on empty sleep wise (can you tell from wander-blog here?), I think 5 or 6 hours on the last 2 days, and its incredibly pitiful to watch the sleep deprived dog – around 4 am I held her lips up and she took a couple of great big lung bucketfulls of air and fell asleep standing up, and promptly fell over on me. She’s such a good sport about it though, all she wants to do is play, go for walks, play, walk, fetch, licks, snuggle, treats, fetch and begin again. Frankly, I’m handling the lack o sleep worse. Externally, the only weird thing is that she’s breathing loudly and snorting quite a lot. Last night I’m pretty sure this woman on the sidewalk thought she was growling, and gave me a dirty look after she hopped out of the path of honey’s ‘IS THAT MY DADDY FINALLY?!?!?!’ frisk happening near her feet. I’m not even going to bother explaining that, or the “tumor war map” drawn on her face in sharpie. They can all bite me.

(the pic is her asleep on my lap in the truck on the way to LA, winter 2006)

Honey, would you like some fresh arugula?

Honey a few weeks ago, passed out ->

I can’t believe how much writing here is helping me figure stuff out. It’s like two pieces of complimentary information wait until I sit down with a blank word document to attach to each other and all of a sudden, the world is a little more logical. Today’s case in point: apparently Honey needs more fiber in her diet. The vet said we could either give her extra vegetables and fruits or we could put her on a supplement. As soon as I wrote that down and started mentally preparing a list of the foliage I was going to offer her this evening I remembered that she’s been trying to eat grass lately. She used to do this when she was younger, and I was told by our vet in Tallahassee that it was fine as long as she wasn’t throwing it up. She wasn’t, and the grass wasn’t poisonous, so I let her go to town. Here it’s a little different – we live in the middle of Los Angeles and it rains like four times a year. There is NO WAY that grass is clean enough to eat, so I haven’t let her. Those two little tidbits may never have met up if I wasn’t recording everything here.

Now the problem becomes how to get her to actually eat the greenery – maybe she will because she knows her body needs it, but if we have to convince her to do so I think its going to come down to like sauteeing spinach in hot fish oil or some other substance so smelly that it’ll seep into the paint, because the dog can’t smell. Fetch has even changed – she can’t tell which ball (of the 8 matching balls always on the floor) I just threw, or which she had in her mouth last. So she will be determinedly trying to get behind a bookcase, convinced the ball is just out of reach, when the one she’s searching for is at her feet. She’s being an amazingly good sport about it though, I’ve heard stories about cats getting declawed and losing their minds, and I can’t imagine losing SMELL can be less traumatic for a dog, and although it has been happening gradually I expected some personality change. There hasn’t been one, except maybe she sleeps on me a little more, but that’s totally fine by me. On another note, I’m still a terrible juggler but as soon as I pick up three balls there’s suddenly a dog at attention in front of me madly wagging her tail.

<- Honey (at 55lbs) with Thor (weighing significantly more), her big German Shepherd, at the Miccosukee Greenways park in like 2003