Does Not Follow Directions

Okay, so we couldn't do it. We couldn't let Tuffy go four days with no medication at all. Not when she had already been down to a quarter pill a day, and no pill at all a few days before that. Not when she was having obvious trouble lifting her head, and intermittently snoring while awake. Not when she couldn't even eat cheese any more, let alone dog biscuits.

Not when we could do something about it.

So John gave her an aspirin yesterday and today, inside a slice of shaved turkey. This was not my idea, and he didn't really consult with me beforehand, but I would have said yes. It seems to help a little. And I went out for Cesar brand dog food, the one food we've pretty much always gotten her to eat. I used to hide her pills in it when she was first being treated for the cancer, back when it was on her tongue.

And tomorrow, per John's suggestion, she gets the new med. Okay, we're not following instructions to the letter, and I'm sure there are good reasons why Dr. K. wants the prednisone out of the system before Tuffy gets the other stuff. But there really can't be much prednisone inside her at this point, or she wouldn't be suffering so. And the whole point of this is to keep the suffering at bay as long as we can. Otherwise, what's the point? I'm sitting here listening to her trying to breathe, and morning can't come soon enough for either of us.

In one of the Mâvarin books that I haven't written much of yet, I discovered last week that the king of Mâvarin is self-medicating to rid himself of the effects of a love spell. And I decided tonight that, as in Real Life, that situation won't be resolved quickly or easily. Tuffy is a different matter: right or wrong, we end this painful transitional period tomorrow, and watch her closely to see if the new stuff is going to help. If it does, she gets to live a little longer. If not, then I guess the clock runs out when the reinstated prednisone no longer does enough for her.

I wasn't going to write about Tuffy again tonight, but that was the only thing in my head when I sat down to write this. I could say something about the early Beatles, or Steven Moffat, or the difference between a bug and a feature, or Sara and Sarah going on the Tower of Terror without me (hooray for them!). But really, I'm not prepared tonight for any such rants and rambles. Tomorrow night is the Weekend Assignment, so I'll pull myself together for that. Now, where is that copy of Love?

Karen