I mentioned yesterday that Dende is starting his fourth month of steroids. I think both Tim and I are surprised at how well he is doing–Tim had even said, when we first found out in February, that he anticipated Dende being gone before he started his work season. All of the information we had been given on Lymphoma seemed to point to a quick illness and break-down. Yet, here we are, a whole month into Tim’s work season and Dende is plugging away.
He has, however, started to display some new characteristics over the past month or so. I’ve already mentioned that the steroids he’s taking make him unbelievably hungry and thirsty. But recently he’s also started panting much more than normal. We call it his “smile” face. He’s panting and the corners of his mouth are turned upwards–which is odd since that used to be a sign that he was going to throw-up. But now it’s like he just can’t catch his breath or he’s very hot. The lump under his chin is significantly larger now. This might explain why he’s panting more–maybe it’s just harder for him to breathe.
But back to being so hungry and thirsty. It’s started to take a toll on his bladder control. We’ve had to move him into the bathroom for the night with a blanket on the floor. Tim takes him for a walk just before bed but despite that, he can’t make it through the night without wetting on his blankets. Which makes for a cumbersome new morning routine: Open the door to the bathroom, make a face at the awful smell, carefully pick up his blankets by a tiny dry corner, toss them in the washing machine, come back upstairs and mop the floor, set back out the shower rug for the day, don’t forget to switch his blankets over later in the day or he’ll be sleeping on wet blankets, and get ready to do it all again tomorrow.
I’ve started to analyze the cost of having to wash/dry his blankets every day and it’s started me thinking about the possibility of trying doggie diapers. I know I’ve scoffed at them in the past but it might be the more cost efficient way of handling this, and since his quality of life otherwise seems to be fairly normal it might be worth it. However, we’re unsure if he would leave it alone and not rip them to shreds… I wish they sold them individually so we could just experiment with one. I just hate to buy a bunch and then discover it won’t work. And then again, I could just keep washing his blankets and forget about it…
I bet if you asked your vet for a sample, they’d have a couple you could try.
oooooooh, that’s so smart! I didn’t think of that. I’ll definitely call them tomorrow.
I’m glad to hear he is still doing reasonably well. It has given you all quite a lot of time to get used to the idea of losing him and given you time to spend loving him up. I wonder if the heat and humidity make it harder for him to breathe lately. It does that to people.
Mom