Not Sophie's Choice

This bas been a week from hell.

It’s worse than having a brand new baby. I’m exhausted. The sum total of sleep – cumulative over the week amounts to a total of about 7 hours – for the whole week. Not 7 hours in a row – not even 2 hours in a row. Even 1 hour at a time would be luxurious. I can only imagine how frantic Sophie must be feeling, too. She jumps up and frantically “wakes” me to get outside as fast as possible. When she gets out there – she leaves a spot about the size of a dime of this awful black diarrhea. Then back in the house – only to do it all again 20 or 30 minutes later.

Sophie had her third chemo treatment a week ago, and she is so sick – I can’t keep up with all the vomiting and diarrhea. It is everywhere. She doesn’t sleep – she passes out with exhaustion – as do I. Tonite I left her at home while I went to the baseball game – because at this morning’s game she was leaving little piles of runny black poop everywhere – and there was no way I could pick it up – and there are lots of little kids playing around the outside of the diamond. I covered the piles with wood chips as best as I could – but …. anyway – I left her at home tonite. When we got home – as soon as we opened the door – I knew she had been in some distress. There were 5 piles of vomit – just plain rice – and she only ate about 1/4 of a cup earlier today – large piles. And in the living room – there was a huge puddle of black diarrhea with smaller puddles leading to and away from the main one. The house reaked – Sophie was distressed – and I got to spent the last 2 hours trying to clean up the majority of the stain. Added to this is the destruction from last night. She didn’t even try to wake me up – although I was awake listening to her anyway. She threw up 5 times  and left 3 piles of this horrible black diarrhea.

My carpet cleaner is broken. I am out of spray cans and spot removers of carpet cleaners. I am out of paper towels. My house smells like an outhouse. To add insult to injury – Chester, my 17 year old cat – apparently has a stubborn hairball that he HAS to get out tonite – so he has been hacking and coughing – and vomiting in various places around the house, too. My son stepped in a huge pile of vomit this morning while waking me up to get to his ball game for 8:00 am.

Essentially, Sophie hasn’t eaten anything for 3 days now. Nothing. She doesn’t even look like herself anymore. She has lost the “happy” look of the Golden Retriever. Her head is hot.

Of course, it is midnight on Saturday night. The Emergency Vet Clinic charges $500 to walk in the door – and the oncologist is only there on Mondays and Thursdays. I was just there on Thursday to pick up an anti-nausea medication – “Metoclopromide”, and they told me to get her Pepcid AC. I’ve been giving her the Meto… every 8 hours as directed – and 6 ml of the Pepcid AC.

This treatment is definitely far worse than the cancer that it is treating. I cannot do this to my dog anymore. I cannot do this to me anymore.

I sincerely hope that 3 treatments is enough to make a difference in her prognosis. And I sincerely hope that she stops vomiting and pooping very, very soon. I cannot do this to my best friend anymore.

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