Zuko's Journey

For the last 2 days Zuko has been pretty constipated. A few nuggets would peak out but it seems as though his large intestine isn’t moving his poop along. I gave him an enema the other day and that helped a little – a few nuggets came out but his tummy was so bloated and I could feel all the poop that was still in there. That night he was all fussy and couldn’t sleep which meant I didn’t sleep either.

I brought him in to see my vet yesterday and we took an X-ray to see what was going on and for sure he had massive amounts of poop that hasn’t moved. So what we did was try to flush it all out! we took a fecal probe to stick in his bum to get things moving and put some water in there to flush it out and sooooooo much poop came out. At first it was nuggets and then it was just diarrhea. My vet said not to be alarmed if there was some blood coming out with the poop because we just irritated his GI. He is still on antibiotics from his UTI so that would help. I stayed there for 2-3 hours just lightly massaging his tummy to get things moving so he could poop it all out. However, just when I thought it was over, as I was carrying him out, more poop came out! Good thing I had a big cardboard box that he could lay on and I put a trash bag on top with a few puppy pads. Once I got home I fixed his area with puppy pads and then I rinsed him off before I put him down. I offered him water and some of his cancer diet food that consists of chicken, beef liver, and a medley of vegetables with cottage cheese (which he loves!) but he didn’t want any of it. I thought he was just tired from everything that was going so Ieft him alone. He was finally comfortable enough to sleep. After resting for a bit, I offered him some food and water again but he only drank a little bit of water. Since he wasn’t really been drinking Ive been giving him some SQ fluids to keep him hydrated. He seemed pretty down and very lethargic so I asked him if he wanted to go outside and he jumped up and was pretty much pulling us as we were walking outside! but was we were walking more poop decided it wanted to come out so he want dripping everywhere.

It’s been about 24 hours since it all happened and he’s still pooping out diarrhea every few hours but his tummy isn’t bloated or hard anymore. He hasn’t eaten since though. He’s interested but doesn’t want to eat. Before flushing it out, he was still eating! despite how bloated and backed up he was, he still wanted to eat. He still isn’t drinking much water but he is drinking a little more than when I first brought him home. Since he hasn’t been eating its been difficult giving him his medications because he’d just take it with food no problem but now, I have to shove it down his throat and for not feeling so great, he still puts up a good fight.

I don’t know what to do or what to think. My vet said its just going to get worse because the paralysis is starting to affect his bowel movements now but to just see how he does. He also recommended that I take him on more walks and to the beach to get his GI moving. When I took him for a short walk yesterday he loved that and was just full of energy but with him not eating and still pooping out diarrhea, I don’t know how to move forward.