Taking Care of Isis

What's it like to take care of Isis? Well, there's a lot... but she is worth EVERY minute!!!

She is taking 8 pills a day. I can't hide them in food.... she finds the pill and spits it out LOL! I have to give them to her the old fashioned way... open her mouth, put them in the back of it, close her mouth and rub her throat. She's getting VERY good about it! We do this 3 times a day... 4 pills in the AM, 1 in the afternoon and 3 before bed.

Eating.... at this moment, she is finally hungry! But her system is NOT used to food... so I have to be careful about how much I give her at a time. As of today... that means giving her a little about 1/3 cup of kibble a day... spread out over about 25 very small meals! (She was used to a full cup of kibble a day... just twice a day!) I give her "treats" of a small bite of chicken breast or her RX canned dog food here and there too. I eventually need to wean her off the Eukanuba and onto the RX food... because the RX food has less than half the sodium of her regular food... and is also low in another nutrient... phosphorus I think. The salt is not good for her heart!

Although Isis IS starting to walk again (whoooHOOO!) she's still VERY wobbly... and needs to be carried outside to go potty. I carry her, open the doors with one hand, try to keep the other 3 whippets inside... close the door.... get her outside, take off her diaper and set her down. That's probably 6 times a day ... sometimes more.

Yes, in that last paragraph I said "take her diaper off"! One of the medications Isis is taking is to rid her body of excess fluids... to keep the fluids from building up in her lungs and heart. She takes this pill 3 x's a day. So.... she wears a diaper. YES, a regular baby diaper!! I'll show later how it goes on (in case that helps anyone else!) I have found that Pampers are MUCH better than other brands... even Huggies! I do not have to change the Pampers as often as I did the Huggies. Isis could feel the wetness right away with the Huggies. Boy was I tired with all those diaper changes!

Sometimes, Isis just couldn't hold it... especially at night... and her diaper would get soaked, soak thru to her bed. Thankfully, I've been using doggie "pee pads" to help protect her bedding - a crate pad with a blankie over it. But there were many times that both Bob and I had to get up, and I'd clean up Isis, Bob would change the bedding.

As Isis continues to get better, she tries more and more to not wet the diaper... cause she knows she should not pee in the house! She's also not going "constantly" like she used to. She is SUCH a good girl! That is really nice cause BOY... diapers are sure a lot more expensive than when I used them 18 years ago! LOL!!!

Isis is now recognizing even at night that she needs to go.... around 1 or 2 in the morning. She just can't make it thru the night. But taking her outside at that time and putting her back into bed is much easier than doing a complete bedding change! And ususally she makes it outside without wetting her diaper! She's such a good girl!

I want to say... a HUGE thank you to ALL of my collector friends... past, present and future!!! If it were not for you....I would not be able to care for Isis in this way - and she'd probably have had to have been put to sleep a while ago... THANK YOU!!!!!