12_13 Morning Update (Sunday)

Hhmmmmmmmm....I don't want to be TOO optimistic here, but Elvis slept mostly through the night. Which meant I wasn't up at 4 am giving him another cough pill and shoving water down him.

Randall said shortly after midnight he started coughing about every hour, but that it was fairly soft and only went on 30-45 seconds. I suspect he would get up and shift around.

He was VERY happy to see me this morning. This is the first time since Wednesday that he's gotten up and greeted me with his wagging stump and goofy grin. Coughing? Yes. Wheezing? Yes. But still very happy. Randall said he went over to the gate a couple of different times to look through and see if I was coming.

He also cleaned up his breakfast dish. Not really surprising since he didn't get fed in the middle of the night.

There is also a tremendous amount of interest in what I'm doing. As in..."You going to the ottoman, yet?" sort of interest. So I suspect in the interest of keeping him comfortable, I'll head in there so he can have a half hour of his favorite past time.

So, things are better today than they were yesterday. He's less wheezy for the most part. The cough is still definitely with him, though it seems to stop sooner than it did yesterday. So this is very good news. It looks, too, as if the dietary distress is ending. I've not seen him straining to potty and he's not taking nearly as long when he poops.

I'll definitely call Dr. Walthall tomorrow because I want her to see him. If not tomorrow, then Tuesday. I'll need to reup the drug supply, and I want a good talk with her (and I'll pass on the info to Fallon at the shelter), but I'm really wondering if what we're seeing isn't the new normal for him. There is still no distress when he's coughing, though he does look at me as if he wants me to make it stop, but it seems as if he's treating it as an annoyance rather than something that's interfering with him getting his breath.

With any luck, what we're seeing is something that can be handled. His heart disease is never going to go away, and at some point it will mean the end for him, but as of today, I don't think that point is right now. It could rapidly change, but my fingers are crossed that we're not going there tomorrow.

I'll post again tonight.