Our Ruth Girl

Our Ruth Girl
(She is 10 1/2 years old)

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Day 11

Today hasn't started off as well as other days, or how I had hoped after such a good day yesterday. She didn't want her meds, so I had to stuff the peanut butter covered meds in the open space of her jaw (where there is no teeth). I had given her some chicken broth before hand to "wet her gizzard" but it didn't help. Maybe chicken broth and peanut butter tastes horrible together! Next time I'll use plain water! DUH! My bad!

Both Bud & I were exhausted last night and decided to take a "nap" in our recliners before officially turning in for the night. I woke up at 2:00 and made mine & Ruth's beds on the floor. I checked Ruth's bedding and it needed changing. As I lifted her back end to remove the toweling, she drew her back legs up in the squatting position and pottied as if she was outside! That's a good sign.

Since Bud's doing the major lifting of Ruth, taking care of fence work, unloading cattle feed, and the many many other physical stuff around here, I just couldn't disturb him. So, I settled back in the recliner about 3:15. I woke up for the day about 5:30 and he told me he had gotten up about 5:00.

We lifted Ruth up on her elbow and she sat there for about 10 minutes while we scratched and rubbed on her. For the most part, she balanced on her own, still holding her head up nicely and looking around. Also, this was the first time we've done this without her drooling. When we were moving her around to be on the other side, we held her on her back and did "bicycle" exercises for a few minutes with all four limbs. Before totally laying her on her other side, we leaned her up and she sat up on that elbow for a shorter time.

I'm hoping, since she wouldn't eat anything for breakfast, that she was too tired, that we should have waited. We will try something (other than her "tasty" supplement she did get gently stuffed in her mouth!) in a little while.

I just don't know what we are going to do if we can't get her to eat!

YIPPPEEEE!!!! About 9:30 Ruth began eating fingerfuls of Cream of Wheat!!! She ate it slowly, like resting between cleaning off my finger with hard licks! She ate almost 1/4 cup worth!!! That is SUCH a good thing!

She's on Ped. liquid this morning... not doing the chicken juice for a while!

We sat Ruth up again for about 9 minutes... most of which time she held her balance (leaning way over the opposite way)!

Another sit up time! It was just with me helping, so Ruth didn't stay up long, but she thoroughly enjoyed the time looking around from a different perspective!

Bud prepared more CoW, but it was a little runny and took much more energy than Ruth was prepared to exert. It's thickening up and we'll try again after she has her meds. We leaned her up on her elbow for a while. Little bit at a time, maybe she will get more energy and develop an appetite. We can hope.

She was not too impressed with the meds tonight, but I got them inside and she got them down! It was sort of funny, after a while of trying to get her to lick it off my finger she knew I was going to put it in the side opened space area and she lifted her gum up for me!!!

We are having spaghetti tonight. Ruth used to love getting pasta now and then while Bud ate. Again, we can only hope.

Nope, she didn't want that either.... instead she got juice and supplement squirts!

After a good belly rub and bicycle exercises while we had her on her back, we got her in the sternal position before settling her in for the night. She was shaky and we had to keep pulling her front feet out from knuckling, but she did very well for the first time in over 10 days! In fact, she slightly repositioned her rear right leg as if to get more comfortable. We only kept her there for a few minutes... baby steps.

Our beds are together, so I'll get to snuggle with her tonight! Beth will get the entire couch to herself! Bud will stretch out in his recliner. Maybe tomorrow night, when it's supposed to be warmer, he and Beth will go back to the bedroom to get a good night's rest.

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This is our baby girl, Beth

This is our baby girl, Beth
(She is 9 1/2 years old)