Not 100% yet

Scott picked up Presley from OVRS yesterday afternoon but she's not quite 100% yet. She doesn't have that sparkle in her eyes and she isn't eating very well.

At first she wouldn't eat dinner last night until Scott mixed in some "treat dust" from the homemade pill pockets. Even then, she wouldn't eat all of her dinner. Same thing this morning at breakfast. She wouldn't even look at her bowl until I mixed in some treat dust.

This afternoon I talked to Kelly, a vet tech at OVRS, and asked her what they had been feeding her. She said a bland formula canned dog food by Prescription Diet, available only at the vet and she personally fed Presley a whole jar of baby food with her pills mixed in it. Some kind of pureed beef and vegetable concoction. Kelly also suggested I could boil some ground beef or chicken and mix it with rice.

I'm not much of cook, so I loaded up the girls in the Jeep and we went to Pet Supplies Plus. They stayed in the Jeep while I picked out four different Natural Choice canned foods: two for sensitive stomach, one for senior, one lite formula. Of course, I also had to pick up some treats.

At dinnertime I fed Presley her kibble and she turned her nose up at it. Then I mixed in a 1/4 can of the sensitive stomach chicken and rice formula with her kibble. She licked the bowl so clean that it almost shines! Then I mixed in a couple supplements with more of the canned food and down it all went.

Turns out she had been spoiled at OVRS and she was holding out for some better cuisine. I know she's still recovering from this latest illness, so that could have accounted for some of loss of appetite but I can't believe she would basically starve herself because she didn't want to eat the kibble by itself. Can she be that stubborn?

This last trip to the hospital really has got me thinking. Now I don't know if we should continue with the chemotherapy. She has 5 more sessions to go through over a 15-week period. For those of you keeping score at home, that's almost 4 months of treatment. There's a possibility that she may not show any side effects from the 2nd round of chemo. However, if she gets this sick again, I don't think she or I can take it.

I'm not sure if four months of treatment for possibly another six months to live is worth all of this. Presley had some really good days in the last couple weeks and to see her so sick again is killing me.

And I hate to bring money into the equation but the remaining chemo treatments will cost another $3-4K, if she doesn't have any further complications.

Her next chemo treatment is scheduled for this Tuesday. I'm going to see how she's feeling over the weekend before I make a final decision but I'm really leaning toward canceling her appointment.