Emergency Hospital Visit for Pinky

I woke up this morning and fed the dogs as usual. They ate well and went outside to do their doggy business. When Pinky came in I saw she had pooped on the deck. This happens quite frequently with her because her sphincter muscle has lost a lot of elasticity and she often doesn't even know the poop is coming out of her butt until it is too late, or in this case, she just couldn't get down the stairs quickly enough to make it to the grass, so she just poops on the deck. Anyway, I went out to pick it up and it looked completely normal except that it was covered in mucus. I picked it up and flushed it away. I figured she must have something going on, but I didn't see anything else amiss.

I put the dogs in the bedroom and told my husband that maybe Pinky wasn't feeling well so he should keep her off of the bed and then I took a shower. When I came out of the shower I saw a pile of, for lack of a better word, stuff on the carpet. In fact all over the carpet there were piles of stuff that looked like raspberry jam & mucus. I picked it up with a paper towel and it was blood and mucus. I assumed this was a very bad sign for Pinky. I called out sick and then got dressed to take Pinky to the animal hospital.

First I made sure my dad didn't feed Pinky anything unusual yesterday because you never know with him. He denied giving the dogs anything unusual except a little bit of egg. I knew the egg would not cause blood to come out of her butt. I didn't know what it could be, except that I just knew this was the end for Pinky. I mean, I really thought I was taking Pinky on a one way trip to the vet. I made everyone say goodbye to her, "in case of anything." My husband refused to acknowledge that there was a real problem and that there was no possibility other than Pinky coming home from the vet with some meds.

I cried all the way to the Oradell Animal Hospital http://www.oradell.com/home.htm
Pinky was just laying on a blanket on the front seat. She wasn't even trying to sit in my lap or look out of the window. I couldn't imagine my life without this sweet chihuahua. I love Pinky with all of my heart and couldn't believe that she might not be coming home with me.

At 6 am you wouldn't think that there would be many people at an animal hospital, but there were. We were seen my a triage vet technician who would assign priority to the emergency cases. Pinky seemed pretty normal other than there was dried blood on her butt. They took her temperature and she had a slight fever of 102.7. When the doctor came in I pulled out a sample of the bloody mucus that I put into a zippy bag. I didn't have the poop because I had already flushed that before knowing there was a major problem.

The vet said that Pinky had colitis http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_colitis.html
He prescribed an antibiotic and told me to add some rice into her food for a while until she started having normal poops. Colitis can be bacterial or viral. Because she had a fever, he thought it was bacterial. I was so relieved that she would be cured with some pills and was coming home! See, I am such a worry wart. The vet said that Pinky can still have the bloody mucus poops over the next 12 hours, so I shouldn't be alarmed if it keeps happening, however it should not continue after that so if it does I will have to call the vet.

Pinky is on the Mend!

I am happy to report that Pinky has not had any more mucus or boody poop emanating from her butt since Tuesday morning. She is running around and eating and playing like she normally does. Whew! Crisis averted.

Food Diary September 18, 2007

Breakfast:
2 servings Del Monte canned tomatoes with jalapenos - 60 calories
2 slices cheese - 100 calories
1 slice diet bread - 40 calories

1/2 cup skim milk - 40 calories

Breakfast 240 calories

Lunch:
Broccoli & cheese - 225 calories
lite peaches - 25 calories

Lunch: 250 calories


Snacks:
Mint 3 musketeers bar - 150 calories
grapes: 60 calories

Total calories so far today: 700

Dinner:


Planned evening snack: yogurt: 110 calories

Food Diary September 17, 2007

Breakfast:
2 servings Del Monte canned tomatoes with jalapenos - 60 calories
3 slices cheese - 150 calories
croutons - 60 calories

270 calorie breakfast

snack 1/2 cup skim milk - 43 calories

Yikes! 3 slices of cheese will go down to 2 slices tomorrow.

Lunch:
3 slices Dietz & Watson Tavern Ham - 100 calories
Lettuce - 0
red onion - 0
croutons - 60 calories
Hormel Bacon bits - 60 calories

Lunch total: 220 calories

So far today: 533 calories

Planned Afternoon Snacks:
grapes - 60 calories
yogurt - 110 calories

Dinner:
Homemade chicken soup - 200 calories
Evening snack - cheese/crackers - 250 calories

Total calories for the day: 1153

Food Diary September 17, 2007

Breakfast:
2 servings Del Monte canned tomatoes with jalapenos - 60 calories
3 slices cheese - 150 calories
croutons - 60 calories

270 calorie breakfast

snack 1/2 cup skim milk - 43 calories

Yikes! 3 slices of cheese will go down to 2 slices tomorrow.

Lunch:
3 slices Dietz & Watson Tavern Ham - 100 calories
Lettuce - 0
red onion - 0
croutons - 60 calories
Hormel Bacon bits - 60 calories

Lunch total: 220 calories

So far today: 533 calories

Planned Afternoon Snacks:
grapes - 60 calories
yogurt - 110 calories

Dinner:
Homemade chicken soup - 200 calories
Evening snack - cheese/crackers - 250 calories

Total calories for the day: 1153

10 Month Post-op Update

I had my official weigh in today and I lost 2.5 pounds for a total of 77 pounds! I know it is only 2.5 pounds in two months, but I will take it! I was on vacation for over a week eating out three times a day, so I am pleased with this loss.

I am still on track and doing well. I need to increase my aerobic activity. Lifting weights is important to me because it is really helping to keep my body toned, but it isn't helping with actual weight loss. I have to make sure I get to the classes at the gym. I will try the kick boxing classes again and get there for hip, butts & thighs class. I have started jogging on the treadmill and that is going okay. I don't remember EVER jogging before.

Last update I said that I was going to start recording my food intake. Did I do it? NO. See, I told you last time that was not my forte, but I know that iI need to do it. I just bought a memo pad and I will start today. Maybe It will help if I record the info here. What do you think?

Chickie Gets Adopted

Two weeks ago in Canada we bought "Chickie" for Katrina. Chickie is a cute, fuzzy feathery toy animal that really looks like a baby chick. It has a button under his butt that you press so he will chirp for a few seconds. He chirped his way from Montreal to Niagara Falls to New Jersey. She took Chickie everywhere, including bed and dinners out. They were insepararable until school started.

Katrina wanted to take Chickie to school, but I explained that chickies do not attend schools. She accepted that for her first week of school, but today she decided that Chickie was sad about staying home alone. (Not that she doesn't have 30 other dolls & assorted animals to keep Chickie company)! She told me that she heard Chickie crying. I asked her why Chickie was crying and she said Chicke was crying because he didn't have a mommy to look after him. Okay, I thought, this is going to get interesting!

I asked her why Chickie doesn't have a mommy. She said she didn't know why, but that some kids don't have mommies or daddies to take care of them. She asked if we could adopt Chickie so that he could have a family. I told her that I thought that was a fine idea and so we would adopt Chickie. She was so happy and concluded that Chickie would be okay at home because now he was going to have a family.

Kids are amazing, aren't they? At 3.5 years old, my daughter has a pretty good grasp of what it means to be adopted. I tell her all about her adoption story frequently, but she never really acknowledges that she really understands what adoption is. I guess she was listening after all.

Make sure you write that adoption story/lifebook that you have been meaning to get around to. Need help getting started? Sign up for a free adoption lifebook tips newsletter from Beth O'Malley: http://www.adoptionlifebooks.com/ Her newsletter was very motivational.

Vacation

I went away and ate out breakfast, lunch and dinner for 9 days. I never thought I would say this, but I was so bored with food! I was happy to finally cook at home.

I didn't gain any weight on this vacation, which is also a first. However, I am pretty sure I did not lose any weight from my last doctor's visit. I will know for sure on Friday because that is my next office visit. A part of me would like to cancel that visit because I don't know why my weight is staying the same, but I know I need to go. It is a slippery slope and this is the critical point. If I stop going, I will just gain weight and I refuse to let that happen. I need to get my head back into this game. I am not at a weight that I am happy with yet.

Pre-School

Katrina started her first day of school on September 4th. I know it has only been a week, but she is loving it. She enjoys the other kids and learning and dancing and singing. Heck, who wouldn't love to do that?

One of the other girls at the school is also adopted. She was born in Guatemala. They are best friends, well, at least for the moment. You know how kids are. It is great to see how well she adapts to new situations. I was worried that she loved her current caretaker so much (my neighbor) that she wouldn't be happy at the school. I needn't have worried because she loves it.

They put her in the class with the older kids. I thought she would be in the 3-4 year old class since she is 3.5 years old, but they put her in with the 4-5 year olds. I spoke with the director of the school and she really thought Katrina would be bored with the younger kids because she is so much more "advanced" than they. My concern was that she may be missing out on stuff that they were teaching the youngsters. The director assured me that developmentally she fits better with the older kids. I hope it is the right decision!

Not My Proudest Moment

I wasn't going to share this and then I realized that this is exactly the sort of stuff I should be sharing. We took a loooong road trip to Montreal & Niagara Falls a few weeks ago. A 3.5 year old really doesn't like to be stuck in the car for a 7+ hour car ride. She slept and we had snacks and drinks and stopped quite a lot along the way, but it wasn't an ideal trip for a toddler.

We were somewhere past Lake George and saw a road sign for food. It was well past lunch, somewhere around 2:45, but since we had been snacking it wasn't so bad, but I thought we should take the exit and find lunch and we should fill up our gas tank too.

We followed the signs that pointed to food and fuel to the right and there was no food or fuel to be had. Frankly, there was no sign of life. It looked like a ghost town. Albert and I started bickering a little because I was annoyed that we couldn't stop and that we hadn't stopped at the previous rest stop that was on the highway earlier.

Katrina started to whine, as only 3.5 years olds can do so well and it was getting on my nerves. I told her to stop whining because we would find something to eat. She persisted and as we were heading back towards the interstate, I turned around and said, "If you don't stop whining, we're going to stop the car and leave you on the side of the road."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew it was the dumbest thing in the world for me to have said. I know that my parents used to tell me and my brother this whenever we were squabbling in the backseat of a car on a family fun vacation, but there was a big difference. I wasn't actually left by my biological mother on the side of the road whereas Katrina actually was when she was one day old. (Okay, it was at the orphanage gate, but you get the idea).

Ouch. I wasn't thinking at all about her life story. It just popped out of my mouth, and that is the point, isn't it? I can't take things for granted. As much as I feel as if she is my little girl who has been with me since, birth, she wasn't. She had a whole history before she came to me at 10 months old. Things happened to her. She experienced things about which I can only imagine.

Did I traumatize her? I don't think so. My husband quickly changed the subject and she started playing with her Caribbean Princess Barbie, so it didn't seem to be a big deal to her. Later on I did talk to her about what I said and reassured her that I would never leave her anywhere. She said, "I know that mommy. You were just being silly."

Yes, and quite insensitive. It is so easy to forget, but I have to remember that she has a history and I need to be more conscious of it.

Does Your Dog Fart?

Chi-Chi and I were cuddled on the couch last night. She was in my lap curled up into a little ball. I was rubbing her ears and if she could, she would have been purring. She was in Ecstasy. All was well until I heard a soft ppppfft. I wasn't even sure what that noise was at first. Then it hit me. The smell of rotting garbage was emanating from my dog's butt. OMG! It was the most horrific stench ever. The best part? She didn't even move! I guess the smell had not wafted towards her sniffer. This scent needs to be bottled, patented and shipped over to drop as a bomb in Iraq. Might end the war a little sooner.

It made me wonder whether anyone else's dog farts too?

Pinky never farts. In fact, she runs away whenever she hears a fart. That's right. Even when she is curled up next to me fast asleep, if my husband should fart (and he does) Pinky jumps high into the air and jumps off the bed. The fart doesn't even have to smell. As long as it rumbles, she is outta there.

I had a mini-schnauzer would would fart and then stand on his hind legs sniffing the air. It was as if he wondered where the fart came from. Yes, it was a sight to see. He didn't really have a gas problem. I recall that he was on some medication and the side effect was severe farting.

The Diet is Working

Chi-Chi's wacky rash showed up once again. It is definitely worse in the summer, but she gets it in the winter too. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it hits which is frustrating. The creams we had from the last time just weren't working, and since we were going to be on vacation for a week, I wanted to make sure I wasn't leaving my dad with a sickly dog to look after. Time for the HOUSE OF PAIN, also known as "the vet."

While waiting for the vet I plopped Chi-Chi on the cat scale because I think she looks like she lost weight and wanted to know before the doctor came in. The numbers were down! I waited for the vet to come in and I had her weigh chubsey-ubsey to get the official weight. Drumroll please......11.6 pounds. She lost 2 pounds in two months! The vet was thrilled and so was I. She wanted to know what I was doing and I told her that Chi-Chi was on a no-snack diet and was eating 1/4 cup of Purina Overweight Management dog food twice a day.

Chi-Chi was given a supply of two antibiotics. She was better by the time we left for Montral, but I had to make up a chart for my dad to follow. There are two different meds and each one had differing dosage that changed from twice a day to every other day to 1/2 a pill. It was confusing for me, so imagine a 72 year old trying to administer the meds.

Chi-Chi's pet insurance has a rider that won't cover any of her rash issues! Poor baby came to us with a rash and I guess the pet insurance company made a good decision for them because she has been to the vet many times over this freaking rash that comes and goes at will! I still have the vet send the bill to the pet insurance company. I noticed that they wrote down something else on the bill so I am wondering if they will pay or not.

Chi-Chi has moved from the obese to the overweight category. We have a ways to go, but her progress has been great and is very encouraging! Of course we were gone for a week and my dad was taking care of the dogs. I swear that Chi-Chi looked a little plumper than when we had left. My husband said I was crazy...He may be right.