Day 15, so far so good, and a call from the Oncologist

Dannii with his head on my pillow

Ok, since I was awake at 4:30 this morning, but did not actually get out of bed until 8:30, I had been kind of dragging.  Since Dannii sleeps with me, he wanted to go out so he could go potty.  I keep the door to my room closed, so the other two dogs do not come in and start a fight.  Dannii was up 3 times!  Before all of this, maybe, just maybe, he would wake me up, once.  This last time however, I could not shut my mind off, it was racing with all kinds of thoughts and what have you's. So I tossed and turned and listened to Dannii snore.  He reminds me of my x-husband!  I hate snorers! So, I move Dannii around, and for a short time, he quits snoring. But I am awake.  So, I start to read my book (I read before I go to bed). After awhile, I put the book down, but nope, still could not get back to sleep.  Dannii is up for the 3rd time by then, and so I just stay up.  Its going to be a long day.


So, I give Dannii his daily morning pills before breakfast, mixed with just a tad of baby food.  He's doing real good about taking them like that.  Now, need to wait for a half hour before they can be fed.
Did I mentioned this was going to be a long day?  Maybe a nap somewhere down the road, if I'm lucky.

I made sure to put Dannii's Prednisone pills into a hot dog, which he ate.  Thank goodness.  Now all the pills that he truly needs, are down the hatch, so to speak.  Ok, so here come's the Vit. C and Vit. E, Fresh Start, SammE, Selenium, Tumeric (it is a capsule, so I opened the capsule, and just added to powder to the rest of the pills). Outside of the Vit. E and Tumeric, I crushed all the pills together.  I took a half slice of a whole bun, and cut the bottom half, in half again (like a cake), I took some canned Easy Cheese and spread it over the bun, and poured the crushed pills on top of that and spread it all over.  Hard to do that, as it stuck to the cheese!  So, took baby food, and used that to help spread it over, and cut that half of a half, into small pieces, and gave to Dannii.  He ate it all, except for one little piece.   I know that's not breakfast as it was not enough food for him.  I had one can of Paul Newman's Gourmet Beef cat food, (small can), and I spooned a bit into Dannii's bowl, as I didn't know if he would eat it or not.  He ate the whole can, gave him some cut up turkey, and ate that up.  Then he walked away.  He was done.

Early afternnon, I gave him a small can of cat food, as he followed me into the kitchen looking for something to eat.  Before all of this lymphoma stuff, he only got fed twice a day, once in the morning, and then in the evening.  Now, he can't go that long in between meals.

Before I fed the dogs, dinner.  I fried up some liver.  I gave Dannii his Innova Turkey and Chicken, and Jenna and Zak got their Innova Evo Reduced (boy does Zak need to loose weight!).  Again, I heated up some turkey water, and then poured it over all their kibble and really let it soak into the kibble.  Dannii got almost 2/3 c of kibble, and he wanted something more to eat.  I gave him a piece of liver (last piece from the last bunch I cooked up).  He was looking for something more, so gave all the dogs some turkey leg meat.  Guess Dannii had his fill by then.

I noticed his water intake has kind of slacked off some.  At least he's not leaving a swamp on my living room floor anymore.  I do have to admit, before I could get out of bed this morning for one of the times Dannii wanted out, he started to pee on the carpet!  Thanks to Jenna, I had wee wee pads, and had one in my room, and stuck it under Dannii as he's peeing.

He may look uncomfortable in this picture to some, but I tell you, he was totally relaxed.  Didn't know what I was going to do with the camera.


I got a call from the oncologist's nurse today.  He is looking into getting some CCNU (chemo drug) at a lower cost, and he found a place in Arizona.  The clinic would call and order the prescription, then the company would call me for billing and such.  Cost $42.00 for 21 days, then he would go a week with no CCNU, but would need a CBC to check his white cell count at a cost of $145.00.  That would have to be done every 3 weeks!  I don't have that kind of money.  Besides the CBC, they would charge for another office visit of $135.00, on top of the $145.00.  I think there is something wrong with that picture.  So, am now waiting to hear from my regular vet, and see what she has to say.  I told that nurse that I couldn't afford the CBC every 3 weeks, that if they could do it like every 6-8 weeks, it would be better. Since the oncologist is not in on Thursday, someone will call me on Friday and let me know. 

I think I am off to bed.  You call come back again, now hear?