After our trip to the snow, Gizmo was actually making an effort to get up and move around on his own a little bit the next few days. Although, once when he got up he took a few steps and then peed on the rug in the hall. His UTI is clearing up since we’ve been on antibiotics, so of course it wasn’t just a little sputter like he’d been doing recently. I’m just thankful he got up by himself and moved to an area that was easy to clean for it and didn’t have the accident where he’d been laying in the bedroom up to that point.
I gave him a new bone filled with tasty stuff and he happily chewed away for a while. The appetite stimulant I gave him the other day seems to have been working and has some lasting power. He is eating better and interested in treats like this now. It lasted a few days. It then started tapering off and he lost interest in eating much so I ended up giving him a second dose nearly a week after the first one. He started eating his food without extra mixers added in again. His mood seems to be better when he’s eating regularly.
This week in his physical therapy we discussed adjusting his pain meds to see if we can get him up and moving better. We’re adding Amantadine to his routine once a day and doing a restart on his Adequan shots (when you start them you do them twice a week for the first 4 weeks then you reduce it. We had been doing once a month for maintenance, and will now do the twice a week for a month series again. Then I’ll go to twice a month for maintenance after.) He’s having good days, but we need to get him moving again or I fear it won’t last.
By July 11, 2024 I started seeing him be more of himself again. He has been making his sweet smiley face, seems interested in what we do, demands cuddles instead of lying in the bedroom sulking, and is eating. His UTI is clearing up and the heat wave is relenting a bit so maybe those were contributing to his low state recently, too. We had a really good day and it gave me hope for the future.
July 12, 2024 he went in for bloodwork. Apparently, they needed to check to make sure his white blood cell counts were okay after last week’s treatment. Everything looked good and they cleared us to continue with the next set of chemo treatments. I also learned that it’s entirely possible that any week when I take him for the treatments, his white blood cell count could be too low from the previous treatment for them to do another one. I didn’t know that before. I just assumed we were on a schedule. It turns out we’re on a roughly weekly schedule so long as his body supports it.
