MOM IS BEING MEAN TO ME! by Gabe

Lately I haven't been feeling so hot because of my inflammatory bowel disease.  Some days I just don't want to eat anything, no matter how much coaxing Mom does.  In fact, last Friday I wouldn't eat my breakfast even after Mom added a scrambled an egg to it.

Here's a picture of the spot on my chest
and the one in my armpit.

Well, Mom got really worried after that, so she took me to see Dr. Patricia.  I hate it when she does that!  Also Mom had noticed some funny-looking spots on my chest and in my armpit, and she was worried about those, too.  Mom is good at worrying, but I guess she's had a lot of practice because of all of us dogs and cats.

Mom had already made an appointment with Dr. Patricia for Friday afternoon, and it was supposed to be an appointment for Charlie the cat to go and meet Dr. Patricia for the first time.  But Mom decided to take me instead.  And she also made Piper go along so she could get her toenails trimmed.





Dr. Patricia was kind of worried about me, too, and when she gets worried about somebody's pet, she always draws blood and sends it off to the lab.  That seems to be her way of dealing with a worrisome situation.  So sure enough, she told Mom it had been 6 months since my last blood test, and that we should do another one.  Mom agreed, even though it meant she had to pay for all this bloodwork stuff.

The spots on my chest and in my armpit were rather puzzling to Dr. Patricia, so she photographed them and sent the pictures to Dr. Senter, the dermatologist.  Dr. Patricia thought I should take some antibiotics because maybe there was something called heliobacter in my intestines.  I'm not sure exactly what heliobacter is, but the word always makes me think of helicopters.  And if I have helicopters inside me, no wonder I feel so crappy!   Anyway, now I have to get 4 ml of this liquid junk squirted in my mouth twice a day.  Mom says it is not "junk" -- it's actually amoxycillin, but it still tastes like junk to me.

On Saturday, Nurse Debbie called Mom and told her that my blood tests showed that I have a low ALT, which has something to do with liver proteins.  And also I have a high platelet count, which means I have some kind of infection. So besides the amoxycillin, I now also have to get baytril, which comes in really big tablets that are hard to swallow, and it's pretty expensive.

But here's the real kicker.  I had to go on a special diet that is supposed to clean out my intestines and make me feel all better.  Mom has to cook it herself, but it only has two ingredients, so it's not too hard.  The two ingredients are potatoes and whitefish.  Mom could have used turkey instead of fish, but she decided to use fish.  And the fish she chose is flounder.

In this picture, you can see me eating my boring food
and also wearing my sweater.

Saturday night I didn't want to eat my regular food, but then Mom cooked up a big batch of my new diet food.  She offered me some, and I thought it was pretty tasty, so I ate it.  And I ate some more of it Sunday, but then Monday I decided maybe I didn't like it as much.  So Mom got worried again, and Dr. Patricia was worried, too.  But yesterday I ate both my breakfast and my supper, so everybody is less worried.

The bad part is that I have to eat this same boring food for three whole weeks.  And I can't have any snacks or anything else at all.  This means that Mom has to shove all of my pills down my throat because she can't hide them in cream cheese or anything like that.  This is why I say that Mom is being mean to me -- because she is feeding me boring food, and she won't give me any treats, and also she's making me take a whole bunch of pills.

And then yesterday it got cold, so she made me wear a sweater.  I don't like to wear sweaters, so I snarked at Mom while she was trying to put the sweater on me.  But then she got out my muzzle, and I had to let her put the sweater on me.  After ever since I've been wearing it, I will admit that I have felt warmer.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I am really tired of having IBD now, and I wish I could stop having it and go back to being a normal dog who can eat normal stuff like other dogs do.  But Mom says that is never going to happen.  Darn!  Why is life so unfair?