I'm so happy I could just shit.

This week has been great. Really great. Savannah has perked up a little after her 6 day hospital experience. Unfortunately, she is no longer in remission from her ITP, but she is doing well, never the less. Today she almost seemed like her old self. Happy, playful, no vomiting. Now if we could take care of the diarrhea, we'd all be a little happier, but at least she seems more "with it". The first few days she was home, I really had my doubts that she'd ever feel good again. ITP is a horrible auto-immune disease. During her first bout with it, her platelets were attacked. This time it's her stomach and intestines. Hopefully she'll recover and go back into remission. Meanwhile she's on a bland, soft diet of EN canned food that I puree and feed to her 6 times a day. She takes Carafate twice a day to protect her stomach, Flagyl twice a day to kill off any bad bacteria, Prilosec to prevent heartburn, Reglan to help with nausea and Mylanta as needed. If she doesn't stop vomiting completely, we'll put her on a special type of Prednisone that is made to dissolve at the trouble sites. She's a regular science project complete with charts and graphs!
Kelly is also home from the hospital and doing well. Apparently she has viral meningitis and it will take a couple of weeks to run it's course. But a much better diagnosis than the stroke or Lupus they thought it was. Scary, scary scary. She is still exhausted and still has moments of confusion and incoherency, but her boyfriend Tony is keeping a good eye on her.
And I am happy and relieved and grateful and a lot less stressed than I was for the past couple of weeks. I'm still housebound with the dog, but I see light at the end of the tunnel. Tomorrow will be my first day back in the gym in forever----I wanted to go Friday, but I haven't been sleeping well at night, so I slept in instead. Hopefully, I'll get a good night's rest tonight and I'll be on my way to a kick-ass body once again.

Priscilla

Tomorrow would have been, should have been my friend Priscilla's 57th birthday. She died in 1992 at the age of 43. We lost Priscilla to a cancer that never should have killed her. She was too embarrassed to go in for regular pap smears. Sometimes I'm still angry with her. But the days and weeks right before her death are the ones that supply me with the best memories. My favorite is of when we were all seated around her hospital bed---her mother, husband and I---waiting, just waiting for whatever would come next. She's was comatose---had been for a few days---and we were doing our best to keep her comfortable and ourselves occupied with the business of keeping her comfortable. She was sleeping on a pad filled with gel, to reduce the possibility of bedsores, though why, I do not know. What is a bedsore when you are dying of cancer? The head of the bed was elevated and Priscilla kept sliding down into the flat portion of the bed. Her husband and mother, or husband and me or mother and me or any combination thereof, kept lifting her under the arms and pulling her up to the top of the bed. After doing this a dozen or so times over the course of a couple of days, Priscilla shot up into a seated position and yelled, "God-fucking-damnit! Everytime I start to get comfortable, you fucking assholes pick me up and move me." She then quietly laid back down and went to sleep for another day before she died. Those were her last words. And I smile, then chuckle, then laugh out loud when I remember them. Priscilla was always such a lady, she was delicate and feminine, well-mannered and considerate. She didn't smoke, drink or swear in all the years I knew her. I used to tease her and call her Prissy. But with those words, she taught me about dignity and courage. Apparently she was a lot tougher than I thought.
The following summer I was diagnosed with the same type of cancer that killed Priscilla. I would probably not have gone in for an exam if it weren't for her.
In a way, she saved my life by losing hers.
I promised Priscilla's mother that I would share her story with people every year to commemorate her life and to possibly save someone else's.
PLEASE see your doctor for an annual Pap Smear and HPV test.

good news, bad news, no news.

So the good news is, Savannah came home from the hospital today. We still don't have the results from the endoscopy, but at least she ate a little food today and it stayed down. She seems to be in a considerable amount of pain, but is still her sweet, good-natured self. If you touch her tummy she starts shaking and whimpering and it's so hard to see her in pain. She's definitely stressed and anxious. I cannot leave her sight or she starts crying. But tonight she seems a lot less anxious than she was earlier, so I'm hoping a less stressful environment than the hospital will help.
And the bad news. My stepdaughter Kelly was admitted to UCSF Medical Center today. She apparently was having flu-like symptoms yesterday and the day before. When her mom called her today to see how she was doing, Kelly couldn't put together her thoughts and words to form a sentence. She was taken to the emergency room and later admitted. She had a CAT scan tonight that came back clear, as well as a spinal tap to check for meningitis. That came back clear as well. They wanted to do an MRI, but she became too agitated and got up out of the MRI machine and walked out of the room. They gave her some Ativan to settle her down and they will try to do an MRI again tomorrow. Right now it doesn't look like she had a stroke, but it's still a possibility. She still can not speak much---she just occasionally says a word that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what she was asked. I am so heartsick tonight. And my husband is devastated.
The no news: no results from Savannah's endoscopy. No definitive test results for Kelly.

Savannah

A pillow and a down comforter----what more does a girl need? My best four-legged friend is sick. Really sick. And I am having such a hard time with it. Savannah has been my "rock" during so many hard times in my life. She arrived in my life shortly after my last boxer, Dusty, drowned in my swimming pool late one night. When Dusty died, I swore I wouldn't get another dog for a long time. I just didn't think I could love another as much as I had loved her. And then Savannah showed up in my life and everything changed. When she was about a year old, Roger and I separated. Savannah was there for me. When my brother died a few years later, Savannah was there for me. When a close friend dumped me, Savannah took care of me. And when Savannah contracted a near-fatal immune deficiency disease, I was there for her and I took care of her. I gave her 8 different meds, 8 times a day for 8 months. Easy to remember. I quit my job to stay home with her. We became inseparable during that time. She took care of me, and I took care of her. Savannah has been in the hospital now for 5 days. She has had a few bouts with pancreatitis before, but last week she vomited blood two different times, 5 days apart. The cause is obviously something besides pancreatitis,although she has that, too. Today she had an endoscopy to try to find the reason. In an endoscopy, a tiny camera is sent down the throat and esophagus into the stomach to film the interior of the stomach. The doctor found a lot "angry" red spots and took numerous samples of tissue to send to the pathology lab. He also found food that had not been digested although Savannah had not eaten for about 12 hours. The food should already have passed out of her stomach. So things aren't looking too great. And I'm pissed because the entire time she has been in the hospital, I have been asking the vet about what could be causing the bleeding. And I kept hearing "pancreatitis". Now I'm not a vet, but I have studied human physiology and I know that frank blood in vomit is not coming from anywhere past the stomach. If the bleeding is anywhere in the digestive system beyond the stomach, blood would be found in the stool, not in vomit. So when they told me last night that they thought she could come home today, I asked AGAIN if they had figured out where the bleeding was coming from. The answer was no, so after much discussion and a consultation with 2 other vets, it was decided that they would do the endoscopy. So things aren't looking good and I am wondering if she would have gotten this sick if they had done the endoscopy sooner. Who knows? We won't get the results back from the lab for a few days. It could be something as simple as ulcers. It could be something as serious as cancer. But my dog is coming home tomorrow. And we will be there for each other and I will take care of her no matter what. I couldn't do anything less for my best friend.