Maybe I'm just putting everything Ozzie does under a microscope and being hypervigilant about it all. He is waking us to go outside in the middle of the night, so his tummy isn't in balance yet. On Friday I called the vet about making an appointment to get him checked and have a blood test to see how the cancer is doing (or not doing). I take him in Tuesday afternoon, which will give me time to see better how he acts and eats. I check Ozzie's lymph glands and don't feel anything out of the ordinary.
Sometimes I feel like I'm giving a weather report, but once Saturday's rain was gone, we got in short walks on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday afternoons. Ozzie's tummy is still not right, he has diarrhea for which he keeps waking me at least once in the night.
The trip to the vet on Tuesday afternoon had Ozzie weighing 44.2 pounds, more than before; the vet checked his lymph glands and all felt normal. Blood was drawn from Ozzie's front right paw, and we'll get the test results Wednesday. The vet listened to Ozzie's heart and internal organs; he has had a heart murmur for some time now, not sure when it started, I wonder if it's related to the Adriamycin chemotherapy drug. The vet didn't find any reason for his diarrhea, but she gave him some liquid Barium, and I took some home to give him three times a day. I also took home some Metronidazole pills in case Ozzie has bacteria in his gastrointestinal tract; he gets those twice a day, which I am disguising in cheese.
Because his tummy has been upset these last several days, I have removed or limited the Hill's Prescription Diet n/d canned food and increased his Iams mini-chunks dry food and added plain cooked rice and cooked ground beef. The Kaopectate I gave him on Sunday didn't seem to help at all. Other people whose dogs have been on the n/d canned dog food report that after some time that diet is too rich for the dogs, that they get diarrhea; we'll see if that's the case with Ozzie.
On Wednesday morning the vet called with the results of Ozzie's bloodwork: "wonderful." Ozzie's numbers are comfortably in the normal range. The Barium did the trick for Ozzie's diarrhea; it only took four applications of 4cc each for him to return to normal. I continue to give Ozzie the pills for his GI tract; I need to give them twice a day until they run out (14 pills are a week's worth). Now that Ozzie's tummy is back to normal, he is back to being playful and bouncy.
The days are nice, so we got in short (10-15 minutes) walks on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.