Ghost's Tummy and the Horrible Evening at the Vet

Ghost’s has had an upset tummy again. This makes the fourth bout of diarrhea since we got her in the middle of December. The first was giardia, the second was some other parasite, the third we don’t know because we just treated her at home, and now, the fourth happened a couple weeks ago.

She was a little anxious the Thursday morning before Easter and her poop was quite runny when Nathan walked her before work. We came home that night to a mess upstairs, but she seemed okay, so we fed her dinner. BIG mistake. She woke us up repeatedly that night to go out and poop. Good thing Friday was a holiday, otherwise Nathan and I would have been toast. So we didn’t feed her Friday morning and then that night she had some beef broth with her kibble and some pieces of roast pork. Saturday it was more beef broth and kibble for both her meals. By this time, her poops we’re improving, so we thought “great”. I fed her dry kibble Sunday morning and evening. And she woke us up repeatedly that night to go out. Good thing we both had Easter Monday off too. So I decided to try plain white rice and boiled chicken. Did that Monday night and Tuesday. She still wasn’t getting any better. Poops were still runny and she had no energy at all. I mean, she was still happy to go for walks and to agility class, but as soon as we get home, she’d just collapse on the floor exhausted.

So Wednesday I called the vet and they booked us in to their “emergency” slot that night at 6:20 pm. Since Nathan was fencing, I had to take her in myself. Raced home after work, wolfed down a bowl of cereal and then took her down to the vet, about a 30 minute walk away.

I opened the door and was greeted by the sound of a woman WAILING. She was sobbing and wailing and kicking things and yelling at her relatives. From the bits and pieces I overheard and was told, her dog had died quite suddenly. Apparently she had one of those ones with the snub nose and her parents (she was probably mid-twenties) had fed the dog something and it choked and died. I guess it’s actually a fairly common thing for those smushed faced dogs to choke on things. I’m sure she blamed them for her dog dying. It was pretty horrible. And THEN I looked around some more.

There are 4 treatment rooms at our vet. Ghost and I were in one, the sobbing lady and her family in another. Across the way in one of the other two, I saw a man come out with an empty cat carrier and a nurse go into the back with a bundle of blankets that were holding a very still cat. In the other room there was an elderly couple who didn’t have any pet with them at all that I could see. They were just sitting there. And then I heard them ask if they could have their blanket back.

Ick. Ghost was the only pet that was alive in that place. It was horrible. I felt so awful for everyone there, like I was parading my dog that ONLY had diarrhea before their grief. And then I started to get paranoid about Ghost. What if it was something WORSE? What if she wasn’t really fine?

But, the visit with the vet went fine. He thinks they probably just didn’t get all of the parasite/bacteria/whatever from the second time, rather than she’s been unlucky to infect herself AGAIN. So we got some soft food and the powder to put on top and a prescription for some antibiotic-type pills. At the same time we got her giardia vaccination, so that’s good. She was a good girl, just a bit squirmy, but didn’t yelp or anything at the needle.

Of course at this point I just wanted to get the hell out of there with my live pet, but I didn’t know how I was going to get the prescription. I’m sure Shoppers wouldn’t have liked me bringing Ghost inside. So I called Mom. Nathan said afterwards to me “Couldn’t you have left her at the vet’s while you ran over to get the pills?” Well, probably. But did I WANT to leave her? Not on god’s green earth. So Mom came and sat with Ghost in the car while I got her pills and then drove us home. I was so completely exhausted and drained by this point that I just collapsed into my chair and sat for an hour before I dragged myself up to bed.

Now she's almost done her meds and she's definitely back to her usual goofy self. Of course, now I'm sick. I caught the office plague. And being pregnant and sick at the same time SUCKS! I was off Thursday, Friday last week and Monday. I went to work Tuesday morning, cried 3 times in the first hour and then went home at lunch. I've declared I'm taking the rest of the week off work too. I can't get any sleep, I get exhausted showering or going up the stairs, and I just feel icky. Cold wise, I think it's getting better, but still not great. I talked to the midwives today and they said that because my immune system is messed up from being pregnant it could take 2 or 3 weeks longer to recover from a common cold. Oh joy. So in the meantime I'll nap if I can, sit in my chair, read, watch trashy daytime television and hope everything eventually gets better.

Ghost and the Bathtub

So we’ve discovered that Ghost is afraid of the bathtub. And not just a little bit.

I was having a nice relaxing oatmeal bath the other day (my skin’s been really itchy lately) and she came into the bathroom to see what I was doing. Now, Ghost’s been in the bathroom before, but she’s not been that interested in it. She’s cautiously approached the empty tub with the curtain drawn across it and then beats a hasty retreat.

So now I’m in the tub. In water. She was curious about what I was doing, and quite happy to lick the oatmealy water off my fingers, but then I shifted. The water in the tub sloshed about a bit and she RAN out of the bathroom like something terrifying was chasing her. She ran to get Nathan and then was whining and pacing and generally fretting. Nathan came into the bathroom to show her that I was okay, but she would have none of it. She started to stare at him accusingly, like HE had put me in there and MADE me stay there. She was very anxious for the rest of my bath and not happy till I was out and all the water was gone.

So now the question is, how the heck are we going to bathe her?? It’s a good thing she’s not a naturally smelly dog that needs to be bathed frequently. I don’t know what we’d do then. I think she’s probably afraid of it from when she was at the shelter. I think when she first came in, they bathed her and clippered her quite severely, so she probably associates all of it together as a bad experience.

People have suggested the dog wash, but I don’t know if that would be just as bad as the shelter, since it would probably look and smell similar. I think we may just end up getting a kiddie pool and bathing her in that in the yard. I think that might be the best (and easiest!) option. Time will tell I guess. Once it’s warmer, we’ll have to find out if she enjoys standing in or swimming in water. Then we’ll be able to figure out whether it’s the water or the environment that she doesn’t like.

In the meantime, thank heaven’s for non-smelly dogs!

Bean Updates

Okay, so now I've accumulated 7 (SEVEN!!!) different things to post about, so I'd better get going. Since I'm sure most of you are interested to know how the pregnancy is going, I'll start there.

Things are going good.

Okay, I’ll elaborate.

The homeopathic remedy that the midwives recommended has done wonders for my sciatic nerve. I have little episodes of pain, but not enough to knock my knee out from under me or make me cry. It really is quite amazing. I just take a little pellet whenever I feel like I need it. I find the aches and pains are worse by the end of the week, when I’ve been sitting still for 5 days. I try and remember to get up and move around lots, but it’s kind of a hard thing to do when your job is mostly sitting in front of a computer.

I’m still more tired than usual and it takes everything in me to make it through a whole week of work. Day by day, I’m usually coherent till around 2:00 pm and then that’s pretty much it, I’m done. I end up staring at the wall or something equally as non-productive for the rest of the day. But I keep the bosses updated on how I’m feeling and they cut me some slack, so things work out okay. I really think that having nice, open communication with them about everything works to my advantage. Then they’re not in the dark if I miss a couple days of work or leave at 4:00 pm instead of 5:00 pm.

We had our 18 week ultrasound on March 30th. It was pretty incredible. AND I got to pee out all the 2 litres of water I drank after about 5 minutes, so that was even better. It was so amazing to see our little Bean moving about and kicking and stretching and drinking amniotic fluid. It kept hiding under my belly button though. Must be shy. =D It was quite keen to show off it’s legs and feet, but kept hiding when we wanted to see its little face. But I will save most of my reflections on the ultrasound for one of my seven posts. In the meantime, you can go to Nathan’s blog and see some of the pics and read his thoughts on the event.

Baby brain has set in with a vengeance. I was going to hand wash our place mats in the sink. I went downstairs for the detergent. I had to make that trip THREE times before I actually remembered to bring it back up with me. One afternoon at work, I did the same thing wrong THREE times in a row. And wrong differently every time. This was after 2:00 pm. I went home early. And then there’s the usual, like forgetting pretty much everything, asking the same questions over and over, and just general DUH moments.

Just in the past few days my belly has POPPED. Like, seriously. I’m sure it’s much bigger today than it was on Friday. I’m starting to actually look pregnant, instead of just maybe-pregnant-maybe-fat. It’s kind of cute. I’ve got some nice outfits that accentuate it too, so that’s fun.

I’m having a bit of a hard time finding a comfortable position to sleep in. Ordinarily, I’m a belly sleeper, which doesn’t quite work so well anymore. My hips get sore from sleeping on my side, even with a pillow between my knees and one under my belly. The yoga-ish position that Gillian showed me works most of the time, but I do find myself tossing and turning quite a bit. I really, really hope I’m not keeping Nathan awake. In other sleep news, I’ve decided that 5:00 am is a ridiculous time to wake up. I’ve reset my alarm for 5:30 am and I can still catch the last express bus and make it to work for 8:00 am. It’s amazing how much difference a half hour can make.

We’ve started moving bookcases and books from the office into the other spare room. The office is bigger, so we decided we’d be nice and give Bean the bigger room. =D And we’re finally merging our book collections! No more Nathan’s children’s books and Sheila’s children’s books. It’s all smushed together. Yay us!

I think I may be starting to feel Bean move. I’ve had a couple days now where I can feel things that kind of feel like gas bubbles in your stomach. It could just be my usually digestive acrobatics, but I swear they were lower than any stomach bits should be. We’ll see I guess. But maybe???

I’ve gained 7.5 lbs since Christmas, and 3 of that has been in the last 2 or 3 weeks. I give all the credit to Ghost. I’m sure I’m losing weight walking her and then gaining back whatever Bean needs. I don’t mind. It means I’m in better shape than I was before we got Ghost, so I should be able to get in even better shape faster, after Bean is born. But 7.5 lbs in 20 weeks is pretty darn good I think! Yay Ghost! And me, for not stuffing my face with everything available. =D Though Easter was exceptionally hard….

The only other thing on the Bean radar (that I can remember anyway…) is that I have to keep an eye on my blood pressure. Mine is high normal, and pretty much always has been. I guess though, high BP in pregnancy can cause some serious complications both for me and Bean, and I could end up on bed rest for months or Bean could be delivered prematurely. So far there’s been no change in the readings. Actually this past week, it was a bit lower than usual. I’m not overly worried since high normal is normal for me. The midwives have given me supplements to take, teas to drink, exercises to do, etc. all in an effort to keep my BP manageable. I’m not to get stressed out or worked up about things and make sure that I get rest when I feel like I need it. This is hard for me. It’s so hard to stop doing things and rest when I think that I should be able to do more. It’s getting easier to let go, but it just goes against my nature to sit in a chair and ask people to do things for me because I need to rest. I’m doing my best at that though and I’m sure by the time Bean is born I will be an expert at delegating. =D

And there’s the Bean update for now! Look for 6 more blog posts coming soon!