April 7, 2013

White Dog was a little crabby from lack of sleep when she said, "It is just disgusting! Maybe Quinn deserved what he got!" "Really, Little One? Is that fair? Remember the New Year's party where you over indulged in brie cheese and cheesecake and meatballs and you were in agony all night? How is that different."

Quinn woke me in the middle of the night standing next to the bed and moaning in pain. Instantly awake, I looked at his glazed, hurting eyes and heard his labored breathing; he leaned against me and sank to the ground. Rousing Steve, we flipped on all of the lights and lifted The Other White Dog onto the bed. We began to feel him all over; he cried in misery and yelped in terror when I pressed on his stomach. He was heaving as though he needed to vomit but couldn't.  "Oh please no, not another case of pancreatitis," I muttered.

Quinn had experienced a very mild case of what Nuka is going through a year or so ago but it lasted three days and meds almost immediately stopped the pain. I could hear his tummy lurching and churning as I gently placed my head against his side.

"Might just be that he ate something nasty," Steve suggested. "You know he has been on a binge lately."  With the turbulence I could hear, that was a good possibility and a "better" alternative than pancreatitis to think about.

Quinn is a poop eater. This is relatively new (the past 8 months or so). Toward preventing his habit, we keep the yard scrupulously clean; Michael does "poop patrol" every afternoon and Steve cleans up in the morning after the wake up call has been completed. We tried adding pineapple to all of the WDA's meals but when Daisy and Maple were staying with us, they were not on the same program. We have begun to reintroduce the fruit but it is apparently too soon to have a real effect. The past few days, Quinn seems to have a ramped up appetite for this gross snack produced by visiting cats, his siblings and himself (he does not discriminate).

We decided to give Quinn a Pepcid AC and keep him between us in the bed (which forced WD to constrain "her" space to less than her usual 3/4 of the mattress). He was uncomfortable and approaching manic-ness; our goal was to keep him calm and connected until the antacid had a chance to work. We felt him relax as the medicine did its job and after a while the gurgling seemed to stop. Quinn asked to get down (he will not sleep on the bed) but laid right next to me on the floor and went into a deep sleep...

...Just in time for Steve's alarm to go off. Quinn slept late into the morning but awoke acting normal. To be safe we administered another dose of Pepcid and fed him a bland breakfast. After, he curled up and napped with Nuka who had refused breakfast.

When Steve and Michael came home from the grocery later in the day, they carried in a case of canned pineapple (which happened to be on sale...kismet?). "From now on," Steve joked to the Army, "all meals come Hawaiian style. Just let me know if you also want little paper umbrellas stuck in your bowls. Aloha!"