Day 2235

It's taking longer and longer to get Dot ready for physical therapy. You can't rush an old dog. She likes to sleep in the morning, so it's hard to get her out of bed and put her harness on in the first place. When I take her out to pee before we get in the car, she wanders around forever, smelling everything in the yard before she finally does her business. At this point we're already five minutes late. I try my best to get her positioned comfortably, but inevitably she tries to creep towards the side window and ends up getting one of her front paws stuck in the little space between the edge of the seat and the door. When she does this I have to stop the car and re-position her before she panics and starts to struggle. At this point we're usually ten minutes late. Sometimes we avoid construction zones and traffic jams. Sometimes we don't. I wish Dot's vet made house calls. She suggested giving Dot a low dose of Xanax to reduce Dot's anxiety before we get in the car, but that would make me more anxious. I have an irrational fear of drugs like Xanax and Prozac. When I was asking the vet what Xanax does and how it would make Dot feel, the vet gave me a puzzled look and said "You've never taken a Xanax, have you?" Nope. I wish I could ask Dot what she thought about the whole thing.

Personally, I don't think drugs are a good solution for anything. Maybe this is hypocritical, since I do take meds to control blood pressure and cholesterol. These seem different than antidepressants, sedatives, and anxiety medications though. I've noticed that sedatives sometime have the opposite effect on Dash. They make him hyper and anxious. My Mom experienced terrible side effects from the antidepressants she took. I'd rather just learn to become comfortable with being depressed. Who knows. Maybe Dot does need a Xanax, but there's got to be a better way to keep her calm in the car.

The weather was nice again, but the day didn't leave much of an impression on me. I must have done something other than take Dot back and forth to the vet and clean up poop, but I be hard pressed to describe it now. Walk, eat, clean up poop, repeat. That was about it. It's anybody's guess whether trash will be picked up tomorrow after the mystery trash pickup on Wednesday. I took my can out to the street anyway, just in case. The neighbors seemed as confused as I am. There were other cans on the street, but only about half as many as usual. Probably my can will end up being run over and squashed by a piece of road paving equipment.

I didn't bother watching the presidential debate tonight. Been there, done that. Why do we need so many of these debates? Jeez, if you don't know what these guys think by now, you probably never will.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1562

Don't ever let me apply for a job on a haz-mat crew. I hate dealing with hazardous substances. Every time I have to don the purple rubber gloves and go through the elaborate clean up procedures to give Dash his chemotherapy pills, I expect something dire to happen. Logically, I think the warnings are ridiculous overkill, but I follow them anyway. I'm superstitious. Why are these pills so dangerous? I understand why you wouldn't want to break the pills apart or crush them to sprinkle on food, but they have a wax coating like most pills. Wouldn't this coating make the pills safe to touch? I don't get it. And if the pills come with such extensive warnings, why wouldn't the doctors just want to give them to the dogs while they were at the clinic?

Like I said, I'm superstitious though, so I take the extra time to do every single silly safety procedure. Since the primary adverse side effect of the chemo pills is anemia and the primary adverse side effect of my own Hepatitis C pills is also anemia, I definitely don't want a case of double anemia. Luckily, my own reluctance to administer the pills is the only side effect we are seeing so far. Dash is handling his treatment much better than I ever expected. He actually seems to look forward to going to the cancer center. He shows no adverse effects from being anesthetized every two days for the radiation treatments. He still has lots of energy. And as we near the end of week two, the dreaded chemo pills don't appear to be bothering him either.

It was a very busy day, although at the end of the day, it didn't seem like I'd accomplished much. There were still lingering website problems to resolve stemming from some incorrect DNS settings that took several sites down overnight. There were some tax issues to resolve with my accountant. There were dogs to transport. Photos to retouch in Photoshop. And since it rained today, a car to wash. I don't know why I waste so much time keeping my car clean. It's kind of a thankless job, since the dogs continually get the inside muddy and the rain gets the outside even muddier. The car is still one small thing I have complete control over though. I can impose order on it, so I do. I wish I could impose the same rigid order on the rest of my life, but I can't. When it's John vs. the world, the world usually wins.

When I was trying to resolve my client's website problems this morning, I realized that even in a world where everyone is using the same Wordpress template, it's still good to have coding skills. After getting nowhere talking to tech support for half an hour, I finally realized that the only way to get the outcome I wanted was to re-write some code myself and bypass the new restrictions the hosting company had placed on the site. I don't know how long the patch will work, but it works now.

Tomorrow, Dot gets to be the center of attention again. I've had to skip her acupuncture and water therapy sessions for several weeks, due to Dash's cancer treatments, but I was finally able to get her rescheduled on a day where Dash rests. Since her physical therapy is obviously helping her, I'd really hate to abandon it at this point. Hopefully it won't rain again tomorrow. I'd hate to wash my car two days in a row.
 

Bubba is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1555

It's still dark when we leave for the cancer center in the morning. By the time we arrive, the sun is just starting to rise. I get Dash checked in and then take him to pee in a grassy area near the building. The people at the clinic are smart. They let the dogs stay in a doggie-day-care environment where they can play with other dogs until it is their turn for treatment. Then as soon as the anesthesia has worn off after the treatment, they feed the dogs. This is all to build up a positive association about coming to this place over and over again. The plan seems to work. So far, Dash actually seems to like coming to the cancer center. Both dogs hate going to the regular vet, where they are frequently kept isolated in cages while they wait.

I've spent enough time around doctors to realize that they always surprise you with something after your treatment has started. I'm convinced they gloss over a few details, just to make sure you won't freak out and abandon your treatment plans altogether. Today's surprise was a pair of special purple gloves in the bag with Dash's chemotherapy pills. I asked what the gloves were for and the nurse told me that I was to wear them to avoid touching the pills. I was also to keep Dot in another room while I administered the pills to Dash, just to make sure she didn't eat them by mistake. Yup. These gloves would have definitely freaked me out, if I'd known about this procedure in advance. I guess I've always known that chemotherapy drugs are basically poison, but I never thought they were so dangerous that you couldn't touch them with your bare hands. The nurse said the gloves were no big deal, but that was just like my own liver doctors telling me that the occasional heart attack patients have a while taking the Hepatitis C treatment is no big deal either.

Dash didn't seem to have any side effects from today's treatment. There was no coughing at all today. He had plenty of energy on his evening walk with Dot as well. We'll see how he does with the chemo pills. I put on the purple gloves and gave him his first pills with dinner this evening. So far, everyting seems fine.

Tomorrow, Dash gets to rest and won't go back to the cancer center until Friday. Thursday will still be busy though. The landscaping guys are coming over in the morning to clean up the back yard and plant new grass. Later in the day, I need to go to Baylor and have some more blood work done to monitor the progress of my Hepatitis C treatment. Janet's coming home tomorrow too, so I'll need to go to the airport and pick her up.

I need to find an effective way to manage all the pills that are accumulating on the kitchen counter. I take thirteen different pills every morning and another seven every night. Dash takes phenobarbital, thyroid supplements, and allopurinol, in addition to the three new chemotherapy pills. Dot takes a couple of pills to boost cognitive function and ward off dementia. If I ever get these pills mixed up, we're all in big trouble.

Pringles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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