Why there's no new post....

I am working on the post on Eves Park, the last of the four parks we did last week.  But I'm a bit short on sleep, I'm a bit sick of rain, I'm a bit overbooked on appointments and outings, and just to make things interesting......Sadie got very, very sick.

Sadie and Eddie went for their regular grooming at friend Karen's on Sunday morning.  They go every 2-3 weeks for a good brushing, trim, foot care, etc.  With all that long fur, my arthritic hands just find it a bit much - and besides, Karen has all the right tools and the dogs both really like her. 

I picked them up, brought them home, and two minutes later Sadie had a big sloppy dump in the back yard.  Okay, that's no problem - maybe she was a bit stressed and after all, we've recently upped her prednisone which can be hard on the system.   I cleaned it up, fed her the next of her several daily meals (Note for occasional readers - Sadie has insulinoma, a fairly rare pancreatic cancer, and requires frequent feeding to prevent the overproduction of insulin eating up all the glucose and sending her into a seizure), and took off for my weekly game of bridge.

By the time I got home three hours later, all hell had broken loose.  Sadie stumbled out the door and immediately upchucked all over the deck.  Liquid poop poured out the other end.  Feet folded under as she went into a low-glucose collapse.  For the next eight hours I was routinely cleaning up one end, putting small amounts of food and meds in the other, and spreading old sheets over every inch of carpet and floor.  In between, I was cooking up bland foods for her  (she can't be fasted as one would normally do with a sick dog), mixing  rice, cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, pumpkin, whole grain bread, etc., ever mindful that insulinoma dogs need high protein, moderate complex carbs and no sugar.  A challenge on a bland diet. 

Needless to say, I didn't sleep at all Sunday night.  Which meant I was totally wasted on Monday.  Ms. Sadie, on the other hand, was much improved by Monday morning and giving me the stink eye for keeping her on a bland diet.  Master Petey decided Monday would be a good day to be needy, noisy, and a pain in the butt - he has these days about once every week or so.  Steady Eddie was fine and even reluctantly forfeited his Sunday evening walk and postponed the Monday morning one to the afternoon.  Thank you Eddie, I take back every mean thing I ever said about your crazydog behaviour. 

Anyway, all appears to be well now.  Sadie is still being watched closely, and we'll put her on flagyl if the diarrhea returns once the pepto bismal has lost its effectiveness.  Prednisone can do a number on the gut, and the recent increase in her dosage may be too much for her to handle.  Or she may simply be reaching the end of the road - the changes I'm seeing are all expected parts of the disease. And so the saga continues....

Stay tuned - pics of Eves Park coming up next - likely later today.