Saturday, September 20, 2008

Diarrhea : Odin :: Canary : Coal Mine


We had another diarrhea incident this week. Mere hours after I called the vet back to let her know that never mind, the horror of the weekend had passed and he was back to normal. Then again, diarrhea every 3 days or so has become the new normal. (Like 40 is the new 30?)
I don't want to be a crazy lady, but I can't tell anymore what is significant and what isn't, so I just leave messages for the vet if anything "new" happens (like multiple days of barfing and diarrhea). Dr. W called the cardiologist specialist who said to take Odin off the digoxin and that he should come up for a consultation. That's going to happen on the 29th, while my mom is here. He'll get an echocardiogram and a few other things, though he's got a pretty ample history already, with two echos, x-rays, and the holter monitor results.
Dr. W also said that we are approaching the time where we need to think about Odin's quality of life. We can continue to try to mess with his meds to get the right balance (which, by the way, he gets about 20 pills a day now), but if he can't keep them down and we can't get them right, or if his system can't handle them at the point where they're doing any good, and if he continues to have diarrhea episodes and afib episodes and generally feeling icky - well - then it'll be time for me to think about if I'm keeping him alive just for me.
Right now he has so many moments where he's himself and maybe once a week he's prancy. And I don't want to be the type of person who puts a dog to sleep because he keeps spraying poop all over the house. So where's the line? How will I know when Odin feels so bad, and the good times are so in between (or non-existent) that he doesn't want to stick around just so I can squeeze him?
I want him to make it easy on me by being fine, and then just dying in his sleep.
At this point, I think we'll see what the specialist has to say, mess with his meds a little more, and then just keep an eye on him for how he's actually feeling. We've had two poo free days in a row! I just steam cleaned (again) which almost guarantees there will be a poop explosion tonight.
Poor O. He hates wearing the diaper.
Oh yeah, and I switched to all hot dogs for his pills. I slice one up and shove the pill in, and do like Daisy's owner and alternate non-pill hot dogs. I'm also trying to make him eat his dog food before the pills, so I alternate a slice of meat, chicken broth, an egg, or stirred in cottage cheese. Dr. W also suggested cooking him some chicken, cooked eggs, or tofu.

No comments: