Sabi
Died today. So, late morning,
"I tried weighing her (985 g) and holding her on my lap while I offered cut lettuce, carrots, and grape tomato. She actually bit down on the lettuce and carrot (she didn't like tomato before she was sick either), but it might have been automatic. She gripped the lettuce once when I tried to take a piece back out of her mouth, still didn't actually eat any of it though."
C&P for the win. Anti came telling me it's 11:46 already (I think)--I was expecting the vet to call sometime past noon--so I put her back, and left her latest piece of lettuce in her mouth to see if she'd eat it.
I felt increasingly guilty about making Sabi wait in her suffering like that, so a bit past 1 pm I asked Anti to check on Sabi and tell me whether she seems to be in pain, what she's doing, etc. Then if the vet still hadn't called by the time he came back, I could tell the hospital exactly what was going on then insist on seeing a vet, any vet, who could give her a good analegsic. He seemed reluctant so I asked jkxx next. That was 1:15 pm. Seems Anti went upstairs then after all so they both looked. Anti came back downstairs and told me she's gone already.
Two types of things I'm thinking about. One is that a LOT of things are directly caused by me, my actions and inaction. Perhaps overall care would have made a difference, like maybe not large amounts daily of bell pepper, among the most heavily sprayed "conventionally" grown produce. Certainly being more observant and at least taking jkxx's observation that Sabi seemed slightly slower more seriously. Keeping track of her weight, like I knew I was supposed to from before I got her, if I had kept that up responsibly I would have been alerted by that to a problem weeks before her eating speed did. I should have started syringing food and water earlier, and, more importantly, kept it up, and taken advantage when she was doing ok with her weight (ie, instead of settling for 1100 g and feeding less than before, feed as much as or more than before and get her up to 1200 g). Taking diagnosis more seriously--really, if she's not doing all that worse, that means I should be fixing it early, not waiting until it does get much worse and much more difficult to treat! Definitely giving her veggies way more often, to keep up interest and enthusiasm, encourage exercise even if just walking around to reach the next cilantro sprig or chard piece, stimulate appetite, give her GI system some good fresh food (when she was eating a lot of those, her poops were awesome), and just give her something to look forward to for most of the day. It's just...argh, I can keep it up forever.
So no, don't tell me I did "everything I could" or some such. Good intent but just increases my guilt. Oh, maybe you should tell me that.
The second is just that my guesses were WAY off. She actually did last almost a month after first going in to see the vet, but not several months as I'd hoped (and several years as I'd hoped the way I hope to find $500 in the gutter tomorrow). I thought opioids weren't necessary, NSAIDs then later steroid would be enough, and opioids would just interfere with the GI system I'd worked so hard on to keep moving. Well, a dead guinea pig isn't much helped by lack of drug-induced intestinal slowing, is she? Anyway! Not going to start listing some of those either, just the very last one. Each day since the 4th I saw downs and ups, and hoped with some changes, she'd be better. Yes, subcues and more responsible forcefeeding helped. Tooth trimming helped. Opioid helped...and after the day 1 trial, I was going to ask for more for day 2. It was at that point that I just forced her to hang in there because of my belief that with enough analgesia, she'd likely be able to enjoy life at least several hours and experience happiness again, before the pain got to the point opioids couldn't make it better and she'd be euthanized. I never expected it to get as bad as it did this morning. And even then, I expected to start her on regular opioid doses, perhaps very high ones, bring her home, let her have some pleasant experiences. I hoped for days, and my further-off hope became weeks. Yeah, right, try hours of total time left alive, and absolutely zero more quality time.
To be sure, today was the only day that seemed to have such a large time of badness, but the few days before that weren't great either, likely not worth living. I was going to bet everything on new medication, and it would have been terrible if I lost the gamble and the opioids turned out to not be strong enough to keep her awake and keep her from being unhappy at the same time (and if chemo didn't work out either). I didn't think I would lose it all before I got the chance to even start to gamble. I didn't think she'd lose it all after paying so much, because of my decision, for a chance at playing. So very much for nothing. Hmm damn Vista, can't type Korean.
I sleep now. I will likely be able to wake up, quite unlike Sabi.
"I tried weighing her (985 g) and holding her on my lap while I offered cut lettuce, carrots, and grape tomato. She actually bit down on the lettuce and carrot (she didn't like tomato before she was sick either), but it might have been automatic. She gripped the lettuce once when I tried to take a piece back out of her mouth, still didn't actually eat any of it though."
C&P for the win. Anti came telling me it's 11:46 already (I think)--I was expecting the vet to call sometime past noon--so I put her back, and left her latest piece of lettuce in her mouth to see if she'd eat it.
I felt increasingly guilty about making Sabi wait in her suffering like that, so a bit past 1 pm I asked Anti to check on Sabi and tell me whether she seems to be in pain, what she's doing, etc. Then if the vet still hadn't called by the time he came back, I could tell the hospital exactly what was going on then insist on seeing a vet, any vet, who could give her a good analegsic. He seemed reluctant so I asked jkxx next. That was 1:15 pm. Seems Anti went upstairs then after all so they both looked. Anti came back downstairs and told me she's gone already.
Two types of things I'm thinking about. One is that a LOT of things are directly caused by me, my actions and inaction. Perhaps overall care would have made a difference, like maybe not large amounts daily of bell pepper, among the most heavily sprayed "conventionally" grown produce. Certainly being more observant and at least taking jkxx's observation that Sabi seemed slightly slower more seriously. Keeping track of her weight, like I knew I was supposed to from before I got her, if I had kept that up responsibly I would have been alerted by that to a problem weeks before her eating speed did. I should have started syringing food and water earlier, and, more importantly, kept it up, and taken advantage when she was doing ok with her weight (ie, instead of settling for 1100 g and feeding less than before, feed as much as or more than before and get her up to 1200 g). Taking diagnosis more seriously--really, if she's not doing all that worse, that means I should be fixing it early, not waiting until it does get much worse and much more difficult to treat! Definitely giving her veggies way more often, to keep up interest and enthusiasm, encourage exercise even if just walking around to reach the next cilantro sprig or chard piece, stimulate appetite, give her GI system some good fresh food (when she was eating a lot of those, her poops were awesome), and just give her something to look forward to for most of the day. It's just...argh, I can keep it up forever.
So no, don't tell me I did "everything I could" or some such. Good intent but just increases my guilt. Oh, maybe you should tell me that.
The second is just that my guesses were WAY off. She actually did last almost a month after first going in to see the vet, but not several months as I'd hoped (and several years as I'd hoped the way I hope to find $500 in the gutter tomorrow). I thought opioids weren't necessary, NSAIDs then later steroid would be enough, and opioids would just interfere with the GI system I'd worked so hard on to keep moving. Well, a dead guinea pig isn't much helped by lack of drug-induced intestinal slowing, is she? Anyway! Not going to start listing some of those either, just the very last one. Each day since the 4th I saw downs and ups, and hoped with some changes, she'd be better. Yes, subcues and more responsible forcefeeding helped. Tooth trimming helped. Opioid helped...and after the day 1 trial, I was going to ask for more for day 2. It was at that point that I just forced her to hang in there because of my belief that with enough analgesia, she'd likely be able to enjoy life at least several hours and experience happiness again, before the pain got to the point opioids couldn't make it better and she'd be euthanized. I never expected it to get as bad as it did this morning. And even then, I expected to start her on regular opioid doses, perhaps very high ones, bring her home, let her have some pleasant experiences. I hoped for days, and my further-off hope became weeks. Yeah, right, try hours of total time left alive, and absolutely zero more quality time.
To be sure, today was the only day that seemed to have such a large time of badness, but the few days before that weren't great either, likely not worth living. I was going to bet everything on new medication, and it would have been terrible if I lost the gamble and the opioids turned out to not be strong enough to keep her awake and keep her from being unhappy at the same time (and if chemo didn't work out either). I didn't think I would lose it all before I got the chance to even start to gamble. I didn't think she'd lose it all after paying so much, because of my decision, for a chance at playing. So very much for nothing. Hmm damn Vista, can't type Korean.
I sleep now. I will likely be able to wake up, quite unlike Sabi.
posted by Weatherlight at 5:45 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home