Gizmo woke us up to go out at 4am and had trouble getting comfortable to go back to sleep after. I know that we’re going to have ups and downs through this process, but after a whole week of more down than up I was feeling worn down. It’s so hard to know whether you are making the right decision and in these moments I second guess myself. Am I being selfish? But then Gizmo has a moment where he is very much Gizmo and nothing else matters to him except demanding some cuddles and the guilt and doubt fade for a little while longer. He’s refused to be kept down by anything in the past and I don’t want to give up on him before he’s ready, but I also don’t want him to suffer. I mean, he’s always suffered some pain but has been happy. I don’t want him to get to the point where he’s truly suffering and no longer feels like life is worth it. Around 7am I woke up to discover he’d knocked around one of our shelves and some stuffed toys fell off. I found Gizmo happily nibbling away at the Gir my sister crocheted for me and decided to let him. He hasn’t wanted to play with toys in a long time so if he was happily being entertained by one of mine he could have at it. He’s not a destructive dog and a little slobber wouldn’t hurt it, though if he had torn it apart I wouldn’t have been too upset if it made him happy for a little.
Gizmo went for his 3rd CHOP treatment on June 28, 2024. Due to our work meeting schedules, we gave Gizmo the Trazodone later than we should have but didn’t worry too much about it since they planned to sedate him this week so he wouldn’t be trying to get up and hurt himself. I went to a local pet store and bought him meal mixers and treats while I waited. When we got home, Colin helped get him up on the bed and we took a nap together. Having my snuggle-upagus against me like a weighted blanket filled with love makes everything feel alright in the world for a little while. He was struggling to walk to go out in the evening – a combination of the continued orthopedic issues from last week now with grogginess from sedation on top of it.
Gizmo woke up multiple times during the night and was whimpering. It didn’t get better as the day went on. He continued to be whiny and refuse to move. He wouldn’t eat (even treats or chicken). I cried. I feel like we’re damned if we do sedate him and damned if we don’t; we either make him feel miserable or he could hurt his legs again. Colin is my rock in these situations ensuring I don’t go into a spiral of thinking it’s the end. He level-headedly reminded me that Gizmo is always a little whiny and off after sedation and we should give him a day or two to get back to normal, and he’d talk to the oncologist about options to avoid these problems with sedation in the future. Colin offered to take off work and sit with him to hold him still during treatments, but the oncologist said they couldn’t do that since they would have to give him PPE and weren’t insured for it. They suggest that we increase his Trazodone dose and ensure to time it properly to reduce the amount of IV sedation needed, and they would try a different sedative to see if he has a better reaction next time.
The whimpering stopped on the second day, but he still didn’t want to eat or move much. He had bad diarrhea, made a mess, and had to be washed in the yard. I ended up making him a cheeseburger patty for dinner to get him to eat something. We had to break out one of the meds the oncologist sent home from his first session now. On the topic of meds: some of them can be called in to a local pharmacy. If you can do that, it’s considerably cheaper than getting them from the vets directly. Like 10x cheaper for some of them.
After a bad week last week and another few bad days this week it was incredibly hard to feel like we’re doing the right thing. However, we could attribute some of it to circumstances like failing to sedating, or over-sedating/wrong type of sedation so we aren’t ready to give up yet. We were told it would take some time to get the treatments honed in for him and it’s only been 3 treatments so far. He handled the chemo really well at the start so I’m just going to blame the sedation and hope a change in how we do it works because I can’t put him through this one every week.