Sweet Lucy

Anyway, then she was diagnosed with Megaesophagus back in 2009. At that time the vet told us that her organs would probably start breaking down. But she has hung in there and done okay since then. My husband made her a Bailey’s Chair and she’s done good with it, keeping her food down and keeping her weight up.

But she’s been losing muscle strength for a long time, now. Muscle mass, yes, and just strength too. When I woke up, I think it was Wednesday morning, her elbow was sticking out at a weird angle. So we took her into the vet on Friday. They said she probably pulled a muscle or something and she doesn’t have the strength to stand much anymore, nor does she really have the capacity to heal. She’s 12.5 years old now. I was really thinking, just a couple of weeks ago, that maybe she really would make 13… but now we are thinking we are going to have to say goodbye to her this week already.

She can’t hardly walk now. She tries to put her weight on legs that will support her, but there really aren’t any legs left that will. She still likes to eat, and her mind seems okay. But her body is failing her. So it’s such a grey zone now. She’s not really healthy enough to be alive, but she’s not really unhealthy enough to be dead… so we really are not sure what to do. But the more I watch her, the more I’m leaning toward letting her go this week.

Of course I’ve been crying off and on for the last couple of days. We can’t do anything until next week, of course. But it’s so sad. Lucy is a link to my past that none of the other dogs have. My old house, my old life before my husband and I were married. When she goes, that link will be completely gone. And I’ve always considered her the cornerstone of our pack. Though she’s very weak now and doesn’t exert much of an influence anymore. Tatum will definitely take over as pack leader. Tatum will be our only girl left….

And we only put Angel down a year ago last May. So that is still fresh too. Ugh. The roughest part of sharing life with a dog I love so much. I letting them go. I love Lucy with all my heart, and I really don’t want her to go away.

Lucy and Jet

Well so far, so good, on the Meatball diet for Lucy. The first day, I gave her a liquid meal in the morning… her regular soaked and blended dog food. I want to make sure she gets enough water and so wanted to give her at least one liquid meal. Then the rest of the day I gave her a couple of meatball meals, and also some water mixed with gelatin. I think I still gave her too much gelatin too late in the evening, and so she regurgitated some of it about 1am or so. She was able to sleep on the bed with me though, which she loves, and she hasn’t been able to for a couple of years, because she gets me up at night so often.

She was drinking a bit out of the water bowls, which she can’t do, or else it’ll just come back up if she doesn’t sit in her Bailey’s Chair to get it down again. So the next few days I gave her two liquid meals… one in the morning and one about noon. Then after that it was all meatball meals. Oh boy, does she love eating meatballs!

She seems better at night, now. Last night she didn’t sleep with me, but in the morning there was no throw up on the floors, so that’s a great thing! I really am going to keep this up for a while and hope it helps her out so she doesn’t regurgitate so much. Poor Lucy, I really worry that her throat is raw and sore from regurgitating.

The downside is that ground beef is pretty expensive, but Lucy is worth it. And another down side is the actual cooking, since I hate cooking, and when I stand in the kitchen for too long my upper back just hurts so much I have to sit down. But with the husband’s help, we’ll get her fed with meatballs. And we’ll monitor her weight, too, to make sure she’s not dropping weight. We don’t want her to be too skinny!

Lucy

So I’ve been thinking lately about changing to the meatball feeding method for megaesophagus. So today I made meatballs for her for the first time. I don’t know why I’ve waited so long to try it. It is more work. I am making them out of ground beef with dog food mixed in, some brown rice, and some flour and eggs so they stick together and are kinda cakey.

Today is the first day I’ve fed them to her. So far, so good. Tonight will be the test, of course. I really hope she doesn’t regurgitate them. And for water I’m giving her gelatin in her cooled water. She wasn’t too crazy about that, so tomorrow I’ll put in some Ice Pups for flavor, I’m sure she’ll like that more.

Lucy also got to go to Ma and Paws today to get out of the house and have some fun. She likes that. And we can use the business credit card to pay for our splurge. We also got some bully sticks, which all the dogs love.

Floor and Basement Phase Two

Yup we are painting… but not the walls, or the ceiling, we are actually painting the floor in the basement. It’s concrete and it was awful! An ugly icky red color that was hard to clean. And with Lucy having Megaesophagus, she regurgitates a lot at night, so we need floors that we can easily clean. The icky red was hard to clean. The new lighter color is much easier to clean! However, it’s easier to see the dirt and dog hair too, which may not be a good thing. LOL

It’s not white, but it’s pretty close. And it’s really going to cheer up the whole basement and make it more livable. More bearable for me. I haven’t spent as much time in the basement TV room for a while because it’s just… icky! So now it’s much nicer. We are even considering painting the ceiling and putting in some more lights. We can’t afford tile, and carpet would just get ruined, so paint it is for now.

Phase One

You can even see Lucy in her chair in the above picture. She is such a good girl and doing really well. I should get a tattoo of her to match my tattoo of Levi. I won’t need tattoo removal because I love my tattoos!

Lucy in her Chair

I accidentally tried to put Levi’s but in the chair a while back. LOL. He was confused. I was getting the butt of the wrong smooth blue collie. It would take him a while to really get used to it. But he probably could, too. Not sure about the other dogs.

This is a disease I never want to have to deal with again. Lucy is wonderful and happy and her weight stays up, but she regurgitates often, especially at night, and we are worried about her aspirating. She hasn’t yet, and hopefully never will. I think we are lucky with her because lots of dogs will aspirate into their lungs, get infections, and die. So far… that hasn’t happened to Lucy.

She doesn’t need any diet pill reviews though, she eats all she can. She’s slowing down, she limps still in her front leg, but she’s happy. She’ll be 12 next February… which I think is doing well for a collie. There was a time when I didn’t think she’d make 9 years old. So I’m thrilled that she’s almost 12. She’s the cornerstone of our pack. Our pack Marm, so I don’t even want to think of her leaving us.

Camping April 2008

I really miss camping. I have my Macbook’s screen saver as all my pictures on my whole drive (which are a lot, I think I’ll be running out of hard drive space soon), and saw some pictures of camping. This is from April of 2008. Lucy is the one in the picture (along with my sister and nephew). Lucy was much healthier then, too. Before she had the Megaesophagus. Before she had to be fed three to four meals a day, all liquid in a blender, and then have to sit in her chair for 20 minutes after she heats.

I love Lucy and we haven’t been camping because we are not sure how to feed her when we go. Though I think we can make a light PVC chair for her. We just haven’t done it. Maybe we’ll be able to go camping next year. This spring, too, Angel was sick and dying, so that made it hard.

I remember, a few short years ago, when I would just sit and be so grateful that we had all young healthy dogs. Well, we don’t anymore. Now we have a couple old dogs, and Lucy is not so healthy. It’s a bummer. But she’s doing okay and plugging along.

Maybe we can get her a new chair for Cyber Monday this year… but they don’t really sell them in stores. My husband makes great mega-esophagus chair for dogs though! He did follow plans on the web. Our sweet collie girl, she is such a sweet heart, I wish we could do more for her.

The Family

It’s really not often I get a picture of all six of our dogs. While I was feeding Lucy this morning, most of the dogs were on the couch. So I put the rest up there and snapped a few pictures.

Lucy is in her chair about three times a day now. I really hate her megaesophagus.  I love her, and I want her happy and healthy.  And of course we do everything we can for her.  Our floors are kinda gross now, since she regurgitates still.  But we clean up after her and move on.  She’s a good girl and our special collie. 

The rest of the dogs are good.  Muffit goes hiking with my husband a lot. I don’t post about him much because I don’t do much with him.  Levi is retired, cranky, and jealous that he’s not my main companion anymore, but I train him some and go for walks and things and that makes him happy.  Tatum, Chase and Jet are my three main sport dogs now and they are fun to work with.

All in all, our happy house of six dogs is really peaceful. Everyone gets along and everything is going well. I miss Angel terribly, still.  The worst thing about coming back from trips is not having her here to welcome me home.

Everyone else is pretty happy and healthy though. But I don’t like it when the dogs get old.  I wish they were all young and healthy.

Lucy

So Lucy has Megaesophagus… which basically means here esophagus doesn’t work anymore. She has to eat a liquid diet and sit in her Bailey’s Chair for 20 minutes after each meal, and she eats 4 times a day. Okay sometimes just 3 if we get lazy and tired. It’s a lot of work. We adore Lucy and do what it takes to keep her fed and happy and healthy.

But sometimes she whines in her chair and we have to sit by her and keep a hand on her for her to be quiet. Sometimes she won’t potty before going into her chair, because she’s a stubborn collie girl… and other times she’ll squiggle too much and get her tail in a bunch and that’s uncomfortable. Maybe we could put a heated blanket under her to keep her more comfortable… but then again, she actually likes the cool tile floor so that might not be a good thing for her.

So we try to keep her comfortable in her chair. It has a 4 inch foam pad on the bottom, and a towel over that so if she leaks (she’s incontinent too) the towel will catch it. But if she goes potty before she goes in the chair, that would be best! Dang she can be stubborn.

Otherwise she’s doing really well. I can’t believe she’s 11 years old already.  Wow.  Time just flies, it seems like yesterday when she came to me from Chicago and landed in the airport and walked out of her crate. I still remember that day vividly.  I love my Lucy Girl.