Crazy backyard lady...still on a rollercoaster ride

If I would have posted early this morning, the mood would have been much different. What a difference 8 hours can make.

As of yesterday evening, Guinness was feeling and acting sicker as the night wore on. I called our doctor at OSU and she prescribed more medication to help control the nausea and diarrhea (do you know how many times my spell check nailed me before I got that word right? Am I the only one who can't spell it? Maybe that is a good sign?) Anyway, I picked up the medication here in town at ACOC. I gave it to him early evening, but not long after I found myself calling Dr. Wendy in a panic because it turned bloody. He was also acting a little more depressed and just wasn't himself all day. I still had in the back of my mind, the threat of the lurking stuffed toy plastic eyeball and wanted to be sure we weren't getting ourselves into an emergency situation.

But, before calling, I headed outside to do something important.

You know those crazy ladies in their backyards you sometimes see doing odd things and wonder what it is they are doing? Well, I was one of them. Except instead of finding, as sometimes happens, that the crazy lady wasn't actually a crazy lady after all, the closer you'd get to me, the MORE crazy you'd think I was.

*****Reader Advisory: Semi-Yucky Story Ahead (Rated: P)*****
I decided it was high time for me to conduct a full scale search, which I endearingly dubbed "Operation Poop Chop." The sole reason for naming said exercise was to keep me (semi) laughing about what I was about to embark on. I took a shovel and literally went poop hunting, and would chop anything I found to bits, hoping to find a plastic eye, so that I would not worry that that was the source of the blood. Luckily I didn't yell things like "Curses! No! No eyeball here either!" out into the backyard air.

So, yeah, Crazy Backyard Lady was I. I found nothing to report to make my highly unpleasant undertaking worthwhile. So, I called Dr. Wendy and we talked about his symptoms. To my relief she felt that it was most likely the chemotherapy drugs at work, which I had suspected, but was afraid to confirm myself. She told me what to watch for in case I did need to bring him in to be checked.

We had a rough night, and Guinness got up a few times in the middle of the night with an "emergency"...but by 2:30 am, after turning on the air conditioning to help cool him, he settled down and got a good night's rest.

This morning, he bounded out of bed, and greeted Brett at the bed side like he normally does, wagging tail, and excited about breakfast. It felt like a typical morning. After he ate, he hung around and waited for a corn chip from Brett's lunch that was being packed to fall on the floor, and so far he's been back to himself again.

I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief right now. There's such a difference between how he acted yesterday and how he is today. At least I know there's something that can help the big "D" next time he has a round of chemo, and that his tiredness will wear off.

Sorry for all the poop talk lately, but, well, that's part of life right now. Perhaps in the future I'll give a "Spoiler Alert" type warning denoted with *****P***** before going into details.

All for now, I hope Guinness continues to feel well and has another good night's rest, because he sure needs it.

(Photo: Crazy Backyard Dog eating the world's largest stick, 2002)