Twitter & Facebook
Finally bit the bullet and added a widget in my sidebar for Twitter updates. I’m woefully sporadic about tweeting, but it is often times a more frequent update process than this blog. Twitter Tools is also sending updates to Twitter on blog posts here and I’ve also added another plugin that is sending updates to Facebook.
Most of the status updates are the same in both places (and other microblogs) since I generally update via Ping.fm, but since they’re the main places I check I figured I’d link everything together.
Too Cute Not to Share
I know I’ve been promising photos for well over a month, but I can’t completely make good on that as I seem to have misplaced them. But I did snap this cute picture of a sleeping Yara holding her toy the other day at work:
Also Sarah and Fay will be here tomorrow so I am sure I’ll have tons of adorableness to post from that.
For now, that’s all I have. Must run and get stuff accomplished before the rain starts.
Good News for a Change
I am absolutely thrilled to say that Yara is doing amazing!
It’s only been three days and already I can see that she’s doing so much better. Her stool is, as Sharon puts it, “a poop color” now and more normal looking than I’ve ever seen it. She’s eaten every bite of her food since Monday evening when I first started adding all the supplements and medicine. And I can tell that her stomach is staying full rather than emptying almost immediately after relieving. Even her ribs are less prominently showing!
And while she never acted sick, she does seem to have perked up. My grandmother voiced my thoughts when she said that it’s probably because she actually has nutrients in her body now. And everyone’s in agreement that she had to have been suffering somewhat from having all that food pass through her. I can say she seems especially interested in having her belly rubbed the last few days.
The one somewhat negative is that her stool is loose. It’s not quite diarrhea, but it’s not firm like it was before. I called the vet today and voiced this concern and was told that chances are it’s a reaction to the antibiotics, but that if it gets any worse to bring her in. As she’s definitely improving already from this treatment and we know it’s not the food she’s eating, we didn’t want to make any changes.
We’re back at the vet’s Monday afternoon for her next B-12 shot and a quick follow up check on her progress.
EDIT: By the way, you might notice some changes going on here while I work on the new design. Sorry if things go missing suddenly or break for no reason. Hopefully I’ll get everything straightened out sometime this weekend.
President Barack Obama!
Regardless of how you voted, you can’t deny this has been an historic election. I stayed up to see the results and watch the speeches. I was pretty much glued to my Facebook page where I had a widget of MSNBC’s election map refreshing every two seconds with the called states and reading the different headlines that popped up. And it was there that I first saw the electoral votes jump past 270 in favor of Obama and turned my attention back to the television to wait for the speeches themselves.
McCain was very gracious, though his supporters were somewhat immature and disrespectful, in my opinion. President-elect Obama’s speech literally brought me to tears and made me quite glad again to be part of this country. Something I haven’t felt in a long time. I’ve never been a fan of the constant bickering between the two parties and while bipartisanship is easier said than done, it’s always heartening to know there are those in government who really do strive for it.
I’m also deeply intrigued by the House and Senate races that now gave us a Democratic majority in both. I’m wary, to say the least, but very interested in how this will play out the next four years. I sincerely hope that Obama proves as good as his word and really does bring about the changes needed to get this country back on track.
November 3, 2008
Dr. Gundersen called earlier to give me the results of Yara’s GI test and the good news is that we do have a concrete answer as to her weight loss.
The bad news is that she has exocrine pancreatic insufficency and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Which means she’ll need to be on an enzyme supplement. For the next month, she’ll be on antibiotics to kill the bacterial overgrowth and probiotics to rebuild the proper bacteria in her intestines, as well as weekly B-12 shots for the next two months. The vet also suggested a prescription diet of Purina EN as it’s lowfat and low in fiber, but frankly so is the food she’s on and I think it’s better quality. Not to mention since I switched her to the reduced fat EVO, her stools went from kind of tan and mushy to completely normal. We’ll see on that.
Anyway, the enzyme supplement will probably be required for her entire life and is roughly $100 a month. The antibiotics, shots, and probiotics will hopefully only be necessary for the next month or two. But at this point nothing is certain. Will continue to keep everyone updated as I find out more.
Edit: [Update — Nov. 4 @ 7:00 AM] Spent over $250 at the vet’s yesterday getting all of Yara’s supplies and her B-12 shot. We’ll be going back next week for a quick follow-up and to receive another shot; I’m planning to purchase the other six doses then and administer them myself. Two meals down and Yara seems completely unaffected by all this stuff added to her food, she very happily cleaned her bowl both times. She does seem very interested in all the fuss made over its preparation, she sits in the kitchen watching me aptly.