Clearing Away

SUMMARY: It's not that I don't want to remember Tika--I do--but I don't want things ambushing me everywhere I turn.

After she was gone, I started right away in clearing away everything that I knew would sucker-punch me in the gut if I were to see them.

In the first few days, I:

• Picked up, washed, rolled up, and put out in the garage all the extra carpets that I'd purchased and gradually spread more around the house to help her get to her feet or stay on her feet. Most she hardly ever had a chance to use. I hadn't realized how quickly she was declining that last week when I bought several of them.  
• Oh, and peeled off all the sticky reusable carpet holders, washed them in warm soapy water, and put them back into their storage box after they dried.
• Emptied her weekly pill minder and hid that away. 
• Offered all her meds to my agility club (most, no takers), so bundled them up--along with all the specialty foods and samples and baby food (lots of jars) that I had bought for her and dropped them off at the shelter.
• Removed the carpet stair treads that she never used. (Took me four times longer to remove than to install--that was most excellent double-stick tape.)
• Took her leashes out of the car and the front hall closet and put them into the garage for storage.
• Likewise her food dish.
• Washed the harness that a friend loaned us over 2 years ago for temporary use.  Not sure when I'll be seeing the friend again, so it still hangs in the laundry room, where it, yeah, sucker punches me every time I see it. I suppose I should package it up and mail it.
• Cleaned out the special quilt and harness and water dish for her sleeping area in the car.
• Took her ramp out of the car.
• Gave the other 2 dogs what was left of the baby food and snacks that she didn't finish the last couple of days and tossed the rest.
• Have been working at emptying (by feeding to Boost and Chip for meals) all the fractional bags of kibble that had accrued because she has been picky about kibble for so long now--a year? more?--and I'd rotate through a variety over a week or so. So far I've emptied 12 bags of various sizes, have almost emptied another. Have 5 additional open bags and one unopened one that I bought that last week because it was a new one to try.

But.

I can't put away or dispose of all the places and times and actions that hit me suddenly when I encounter them.  I open the garage door after coming home, and there are only 2 dogs, and I wonder where-- oh.  After 2 years and 4 months of dispensing pills and treats every morning and every evening, no breaks ever, suddenly that ritual is gone and I feel an emptiness about that time every day, or when I think, Wait, did I give her her med.... oh.

When there's no dog lying on the back porch in the cool evening air.

When I think that I should go check on her to make sure she's OK.

When I pull out the bully sticks and give out only two.

When I can take Boost and Chip for a walk and don't have to make time to take her for her own, slow, walk. Wish I did have to make time for it.

When I pull out the treats and she's not instantly there, obsessing about how to get me to give her some.  The other dogs are not nearly that involved with their treats.

Noticing the ribbons and championship poles and plaques on the walls and remembering that they're almost all hers. And we'll never ever do agility together again, or anything.

So many things.  Crap, I didn't think that this would all make me cry, but of course it does.

I have been looking at photos of her, evening after evening after evening.  I think that maybe I'll pull out a big selection of them and make a slideshow. And then I think that I couldn't stand to do so.  But I can look at photos. As long as I remember to remember how much fun we were having and to not remember that she...

Yeah.

Chip is lying here with his head against my arm. Warm.   Boost is dozing on the floor near my place on the couch. They're good dogs.

But.

Oh, Teek.

Meanwhile Back at Taj MuttHall

SUMMARY: Boost and Tika

Still trying to figure out Boost and food and her weight.

She's also getting MUCh worse about scrounging stuff. I have all these varieties of dog foods to keep Tika's interest up, and a lot of the unopened ones (or sealed shut) are on the floor. This has never been a problem. But yesterday she ripped open one of the brand-new, still sealed bags and I caught her gorging herself! Yikes. Is nothing sacred?

She is now the fastest eater i the house. After all those years of Tika sucking down her own food at twice Boost's speed, now that Tika is slow and methodical... and Chip is even slower than that!... I wonder whether Boost thinks that she's getting less food than they're getting?

She also now knows that Tika doesn't always finish her meal and lurks to dive in the instant that Tika's head moves away, and I have to catch her and drag her back from that, so maybe she feels deprived fromnot getting to eat that?

It's a puzzlement, why packages of treats and food are no longer OK around the good border collie after all these years.

A couple of people suggested adding pumpkin, in the ratio of twice whatever kibble I was taking out of her diet.  I bought several cans, and what I'm doing is smearing it all around the inside of her dish and pouring the food onto it, so she has to spend time licking out every molecule, giving the other dogs time to finish eating.

Tika is mostly eating most of her meals, with only occasional meals where she won't eat the first thing that I set out for her.

I'll tell ya what's working with having Chip here, apparently: Before, she was consuming her pill pockets (containing meds) cautiously and fairly often spitting them out and refusing to eat them until I remove the pills. Since Chip has arrived, wow, does she suck down those 2 pill pockets! Doesn't want a chance for the usurper to get one, I guess.

After several days of Tika doing a lot of coughing and acting old and frail, she's back to very little coughing, more enthused play, more alertness. This cycle keeps going over and over and over.

Boost is scratching obsessively still/yet/again, after a couple of weeks off prednisone. I *SO* hate having her on pred all the time, but milder things don't work, and she's now chewing herself raw, which I really hate to see and isn't good for her, either. So I guess it's back on prednisone again. Sigh.

And that's the news from Lake Dogbegone, where all the dogs are cute AND above average.

Tika Brain, Who Knows

SUMMARY: Meds and kibble and communication.

Kibble

Back in July, Tika started refusing her regular kibble or eating just a bit of it. She'd eat other stuff, but not that. So I bought her a big bag in early August of the different kibble that our dog sitter successfully fed her. That lasted 2-3 weeks, then she wouldn't eat that *or* the traditional kibble (which is what Boost still gets). Then I bought 5 small bags of random kinds of kibble. One of them she rejected after about 2 weeks, but has been cheerfully eating the rotation, fed from a different one of those small bags each meal.

Yesterday morning, I set down her food and she sniffed it, then looked at me accusingly. I tried holding the bowl for her, and offering pieces right out of my hand. Sniff, look. Then she stepped over in Boost's direction and tilted her head as though trying to see what Boost had, then looked back at me, then looked at Boost's dish again, then back at me.

So I put away the kibble from her bowl and gave her some of the traditional kibble. She ate it happily. Hence, I'm putting that back into the rotation to see how that goes. Funny dog.

Meds

Tika will take her meds if I hide them thorough in something tasty, like canned dogfood. It has to be very thoroughly hidden, though, as Tika sniffs carefully at everything that I offer her and won't take it if she detects meds. The Vetmedin is the toughest because the pill is so large. Often I have to break it in half and try again one half at a time.

Saturday night in the hotel, she was lying on the bed and I sat next to her. I offered her the hidden Vetmedin pill and she refused it. Tried surrounding it with more food--refused. Broke it in half, cleaned it off, hid it with fresh food. Sniff, reject. Tried begging, tried offering it in a different hand--sniff and refuse. "Oh, Tika," I said sadly, ready to give up for the evening, "you have to take your drugs." I started to stand up, but she gently placed a paw on my arm and looked at me. I stayed there and asked, "what do you want?" She looked at my hand with the pill. I offered it to her. Very slowly, very gently, she took it and swallowed it.

Sometimes I just don't understand dogs.

But I love my Tika just the same.

Coming Up, Tika's Last Trial

SUMMARY: Well, officially entered, anyway.

I entered Tika in one run this weekend, Jumpers, which was always her favorite. I haven't been doing much with her at all, and she starts out in the yard playing fast and eager but quickly resorts to just digging her notorious hole to china under the shrubbery. Tried running her around a small course today with just a few jumps and tunnels and never did get all the way through it.

So I might just pick a quick few jumps and out. So sad. I'm so very sad. I'll make that officially Tika's last agility run. Here's the age data from this trial's statistics sheet:

I'm not expecting much from this weekend. This week I ended up with a cold, so am tired and congested on top of Boost's insane obsessive scratching and biting the last couple of nights, really interrupting both of our sleeps. She scratched for two hours straight when I went to bed last night, and then another hour after I gave her a prednisone.

Now that she's on prednisone, I hope that'll knock it out quickly so we can both sleep.  Except of course that prednisone tends to make my dogs' bladders work more urgently, which could get me up in the night anyway--so I *do* want to remain asleep-but-alert to avoid having a bed wetting or floor wetting like last time around.

This heavy scratching started (it's been building up by hydroxyzine had been holding it off) after several days of Tika coughing a lot during the night. Now Tika's getting an occasional small dose of hydrocodone/something (similar to what humans get with an intractable cough) and I think that's helped some, not eliminated completely but not interrupting my sleep every hour.

And I've already mentioned that I'm completely out of shape, not doing any running or hiking or anything. My foot and back aren't a lot better--improving, I think, but not there yet. I've put on weight, Boost has put on MORE weight which is a mystery because I've been cutting back her food more. She's now getting only 83% of what she has gotten most of her adult life, and she's up another half pound in the last month! Argh! It is true that she's also getting less activity because I'm doing so much less lately.

So this weekend is really not going to be about me and Boost qualifying in anything because the odds seem slim. Instead, it's about Tika retiring, and about sugar, because that's what I'm bringing to celebrate. Because I need more sugar.

In fact, must go pick up the celebration thing right now.

Wish us good luck in getting a good night sleep, and then in the morning it's off to Manzanita Park.

Tika Goes To the Vet

SUMMARY: Things are a bit better.

We checked in with the vet this morning.

Have I mentioned lately that Tika hates going to the vet?  From the moment when I open the car door to see her quivering, to the moment when she races to the car afterwards and does NOT want to take a little potty walk thank you very much, she hates being at the vet.

So she gets tranks, one pill an hour before we go. We tried a new one this time that isn't supposed to be as potentially disruptive to her heart. It worked better.

First, the de rigueur sniffing everything at a hyperspeed rate. But this time, not so much whining as usual and took more time sniffing instead of immediately racing into--

--the pacing around and around. This time, not so frantic, and when I'd get my hand on her, she'd actually stop to be stroked (not the usual reaction at all).

Then, obsessively checking whether the door will open over and over. This time, no throwing herself at the door and screaming.  (And the tranquilizer we'd been using mitigated that behavior some but didn't eliminate it.) So this is also good.

Also, with the other trank, she'd be dopey and tripping over her own feet for a couple of hours afterwards (even at a lower dose). This time, she's pretty normal.

So.

Her heart rate is back to around 130/140, which is often where it has been in the recent past, but her pulse is still mismatched, about 90, which means that the heart is still pumping too fast for it to be efficient in its weakened state. But that's much better than over 200 with a low pulse. So the digoxin seems to be helping.

She's still been coughing more than I'd like (especially the half dozen, sometimes more, sometimes fewer, times during the night that wake me up, thanks a ton), but there's still no evidence of an infection or fluid build-up (although we didn't repeat the x-ray this time), but yes a bit of congestion. Sounds a lot like me when my allergies or asthma flare  up a bit.  Tried Tussin DX for a couple of days but (a) she HATES it, shakes her head wildly after I squirt it into her cheek flap, so have to give it to her outside to avoid having a house decorated with cherry-red spatter, and (b) not sure it was helping anyway. So will be adding yet another pill to her regimen to try to alleviate some of her coughing.

A little concerned about how little interested she's been showing in her regular food. Hand feeding the uneaten parts sometimes works, waiting 30 or 90 minutes and trying again sometimes works, but not always. She's not missed that much food, probably less than a cup total over the last couple of weeks, but her weight is down a couple of pounds. (Vet says that this is typical for many kinds of chronic illness, and also that the digoxin, started 3 weeks ago, is notorious for making dogs into picky eaters.)

She still takes treats, canned dogfood, and other snacks with the old gusto. I've ordered a bag of the food that she got at the housesitter's house (Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream Canine Formula with Smoked Salmon), which she apparently was willing to eat when she wouldn't eat her regular food over there. We'll see whether that helps--would have to really start monitoring her weight to see how much of that she needs daily.

So, as much as she hates going to the vet, her Human Mom is happy to have more information and reassurances and possible treatments and all.

Random Updates

SUMMARY: Boost, Tika

Last week in class, Boost and I did not get through a single exercise without knocking one or more bars. Usually more. Haven't really been practicing. That could have something to do with it. Started doing some jumps again today.

On the other hand, today she carried her frisbee all the way to the park, 2/3 of a mile. That's a record for her.

No class this past week due to rain.

Tika is doing fine. Seems deafer and has less stamina all the time, but ohhhhh so gradually. Still can leap straight into the air with all four feet when I get the leashes for Walkies, and run full speed after a frisbee.

She's taking 3 different meds. Found that I could get her a pet prescription card at Walgreens for $20 and get one of the meds there at less than from the vet. Just ordered more meds from KVVet.com, about half the price of the vet's office. As he said, i can probably get better prices from companies that buy huge quantities of these things at a time than from their office, which buys small amounts at a time. (Small practice.)

That all helps immensely. Closer to $100 a month than the $200/month I'd been worried about. Still--that adds up over the year.

Tika didn't make Top Ten in anything this year, no surprise--competed less often and not as fast as she'd been. But still #16 in Jumpers and I think still around 26th in Standard and Snooker (Gamblers we stopped competing in at all).

Just sent in my entry for our first agility trial since November. Very very weird to fill out an entry for only one dog. I've competed in 273 trials through the years, and these are the only ones for which I entered only one dog:

• 1996/97, had only Remington: 11 trials.
• 2005, tried to retire Jake so running only Tika: 3 trials.
• 2006, only Tika for some random trials, not sure why I ran Jake in some and not others: 6 trials
• 2006, only Tika--Jake died and Boost not ready: 1 trial
• 2007, USDAA nationals, only Tika, Boost not qualified: 1 trial
• 2009, Boost out with sore abdominals so only Tika, 2 trials
• 2009, Tika swollen toe so only Boost, 1 trial

That was over 50 trials ago. And all of those I considered to be simply temporary. This time--there's no one else in the lineup. Just feels weird.


But still not sure what my future agility plans are. Still fermenting.

So Many Sneaky Owners

SUMMARY: And here's the latest episode in Tika's meds saga.

On Friday I reported how Tika partly rejected the cream cheese pill hidings. Friday night, no problem, she took plain cream cheese and all the pills wrapped in cream cheese.

Saturday morning, she wouldn't take even plain cream cheese right at the beginning, just sniffed suspiciously and turned her head away. I gave it to Boost, tried another scoop with Tika. She took that, so I wondered whether maybe I had contaminated the other spot of cheese in the container with a molecule of pill somehow. She took most of her pills with cream cheese after the initial refusal, but I had to resort to peanut butter again for the last one.

Saturday evening, no problem with the cream cheese.

Sunday morning, no cream cheese for any reason whatsoever, plain or fancy or offered to boost first or nuthin' nohow. So everything went down with peanut butter.

Sunday evening, took a little cream cheese but then refused all with any pills in it, so back to peanut butter.

Back to peanut butter after failing with cream cheese all day Monday. Today I didn't even bother with the cream cheese, just went straight to PB. So far so good.

Meanwhile, getting lots of suggestions from other sneaky owners on how they sneak their dogs' meds into their little digestive systems:

• Almond butter as an alternative (thanks Elayne)
• Pill pockets (thx Cedarfield and Tervpack)
• I thought about using pitted dates in which to hide the pills, so I offered her a small piece of date during the day to see whether she'd eat it. Nope.
  For a food-motivated dog who'd rather eat than anything else, she sure is picky!
• Marshmallows (Tervpack again)
• Kraft Easy Cheese (thx Channan)
• And of course I know that I can resort to grinding up the pills to make them harder to recognize

Now I'm prepared in case Mr. Peanut Butter starts to fail me!

At least she seems happy and active, enthusiastically running and playing. Yay, Tika!

Cream Cheese is Out, Peanut Butter is In

SUMMARY: Update on Tika taking/not taking meds.

Wellllll last night it took several tries with increasing quantities of cream cheese to get Tika to take each half of the chewable tablet. She took the capsule and two pills, though.

This morning, different story. Sniffed each offer of cream cheese before taking it. If nothing else, this might be a good exercise in finally teaching her some self control about taking fingers along with whatever food is offered. If there was something in the cheese, she refused it.

I managed to get the two little pills into her, and the capsule by offering a whole ton of plain cream cheese before and after (all of which she sniffed suspiciously before taking), but the first half of the chewable went down only with a tremendous amount of cream cheese spread on my hands, my jeans, the floor, and her left shoulder (don't ask).

After that, she wouldn't even take plain cream cheese and quickly abandoned the kitchen when I tried to offer her some.

However, I was able to go to the emergency peanut butter supplies to get her to finally take that last half of the so-called chewable tablet.

Not sure how long the peanut butter will work. I bought some canned dogfood to try if/when the spreadables stop working. Then it'll have to be grinding up the pills and hoping she won't reject the whole shebang. Need to find out whether I can open the capsule and sprinkle the contents into food.

Dogs always provide a challenge, don't they.

Meds for Tika

SUMMARY: Confounded dog brains, confounded drug prices.

Back on November 10, after that trip to the emergency room, I started Tika on the diuretic Disal (furosimide), 2x/day (half of a small disk-shaped pill).

On November 12, I realized that she also had that anal gland infection and started her on the antibiotic Cephalexin, 2x/day (one green capsule).

After we got the ultrasound done on November 19, which revealed the messy heart situation, we started her on Enalapril to keep her blood pressure down 2x/day (one small disk-shaped pill) and Vetmedin (Pimobendan) to strengthen her heart 2x/day (one large chewable tablet).

So she had 4 meds, twice a day, just chewing up the chewable tablet and the others each wrapped in a slice of string cheese. (Boost also got cheese to keep everyone happy.)

As of November 28, she had done the first one 36 times over 18 days, the 2nd one 32 times over 16 days, and the last two 20 times over 10 days.

Then she rejected the antibiotic. I rewrapped it several times, but by then she (the dog who snaps food from your hand, gulps it down and asks for more) was taking it each time very gingerly and then quickly spitting it out. Eventually the capsule just became soggy and I gave up on that one for the evening.

The next morning, Nov 29th, she spit out that one (with the cheese wrapping) and she also spit out the teeny tiny half of a Disal pill (also with its cheese wrapping). I did finally get her to take them both.

The renter all along has been saying "cream cheese is the best." He watched this production and again said, "cream cheese". I said that I've been giving dogs pills in semisoft cheese for years without any problems until right then and I was sure everything would be fine.

The next morning when I handed her the chewable tablet--keep in mind that she has cheerfully accepted and chewed 24 of them so far--she took it and spit it out immediately. I handed it back to her, same thing. I wrapped it in cheese. Same thing. I broke it in half and wrapped it in cheese. Same thing. What was going through that little brain that suddenly decided she wasn't going to chew those any more?

Finally I smeared it with peanut butter and that worked, but peanut butter is pretty greasy and smelly.

That evening, tried handing it to her plain again, but no, she was having none of it. So I went out and bought a tub of cream cheese. (And, hey, whatever happened to those foil-wrapped blocks that it used to come in? Now it's all in plastic tubs!)

Now she's consuming all the pills again happily as I surround each with a tiny blob of cream cheese. A bit messy but not as bad as peanut butter.

So.

Yesterday I went to the vet's to get refills on everything (except the antibiotics), and laid out over $150 for a month's supply. Yikes! Maybe this isn't as bad as cancer treatments, but that adds up to a lot of money that wasn't in my budget, for every month that she goes on surviving (which I hope she'll do for a long time).

Vet said that he'd gladly transfer any prescriptions that I could find more cheaply at human pharmacies (not the Vetmedin, of course). I'll look into that before the next refills.

Dang health care costs! Plus the price of the cream cheese! :-)

Update: Dec 5, 9:15AM PST: Funny thing: I took this photo a couple of days ago. You can see that the field is sopping wet from all the rain we'd received up through that morning. Just now I notice that the sprinklers are on in the far background! I never noticed them while we were there. Great use of our scarce water resources, eh?

Tika and Boost

SUMMARY: Resting, playing, training.

Tika doesn't seem to have any side effects from the new meds so far; whew!

This evening marks the first time that she has wanted to play since last Wednesday evening. At the time I thought maybe she was sulking or confused because I wasn't playing "properly" with her, but in retrospect, I realize it's because her butt hurt so much. Glad that she's now feeling a bit better.

So now I had to go back to not playing properly with her while at the same time throwing the toy enough for Boost to chase. The challenge with dang Boost is that she won't play with a toy while Tika is--she wants to watch us. So I can't distract Tika with one toy while I throw another one for Boost.

On the other hand, the last few days where I've been able to work with Boost while Tika hung out inside the house of her own volition, it's been so much easier to practice some agility things that I know we need to practice.

It's a reminder that I used to be adamant about the not-being-trained dog staying up on the porch while I worked with the other dog, and have let that slide a bit; and also that at the moment I'm actually enjoying working with Boost on a few issues:

* Send to the opposite end of a tunnel
* Rear cross tunnel and turn in the opposite direction
* Rear cross curved tunnel
* Blast out of tunnel and go straight ahead over a jump with me way behind
* Dang weave entry approaching from the left, and some from the right to keep it balanced.

And we've got 3 months to just casually practice stuff like this before our next competition. Sigh--just hit me again that Tika won't be competing. It has been a very, very long time since I've deliberately run only one dog in agility. It'll be odd, but maybe good for a while.

So things are, at the moment, relatively at peace.

There Is No Joy in Mudville Except for Tika

SUMMARY: Bad heart, bad anal gland.

As I reported here, I've been waiting for this morning when we had an ultrasound and follow-up x-ray scheduled for Tika's heart and lungs.

Meanwhile, she' been licking at her anal area. Since she has a history of anal gland abscesses, I checked when she started licking maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago, saw and felt nothing. Checked again a couple of weeks ago, maybe just before the last agility weekend, I'm pretty sure. Nothing.

Set my alarm for 7 this morning so that I could drop her off at the vet's at 8:00 for the various tests. 5 a.m., bam!, she hits the floor with all four feet and assumes the, you know, "about to poop" position. I rush her out to the yard, where she does that for about half an hour, in between stopping and licking.

I took a look--bright purplish red under there. That can't be good.

In short, we never could get back to sleep, as it was bothering her too much and she kept returning to that position. Clearly in a lot of discomfort.

By the time we got to the vet, lots of bleeding, too. Gads. When it rains...

Anyway, vet *thinks* it's just an abscessed anal gland again. Reason I didn't see anything is because the swelling was all inside this time--possibly all the scar tissue from previous infections was keeping it from showing outwardly. We're *hoping* it's just swelling from the infection and not something worse. Vet had to give her local anesthesia to clean it out, then they kept her longer so that he could do it again a couple of hours later.

But on to primary news: Tika's heart is in very bad shape. If she were a human, she'd at least be looking at valve surgery and isn't far from what would require a heart transplant. How she kept going at all is beyond me. So the other heart medications that we thought maybe we'd add gradually as the need arose--? She's now on them.

They didn't bother with the x-ray to check fluid in the lungs--they sound very clear and the heart is the bigger challenge.

There is no way she's going to be doing any more agility. But, because she's an active and eager dog, I'm not going to keep her from running or chasing a ball or playing tug--but we might try to keep it to a minimum. No more long hikes in the mountains, I'm thinkin'. Although she does like those interesting off-leash explorations.

She's now taking antibiotics for the anal gland and diuretic and 2 other meds for her heart. And my checkbook is down another $1200. Gads.

The vet thinks that the heart could give out at any moment, or she could last a year, or maybe longer. But probably not a lot longer.

She's not even 12 yet! I really had hoped for a longer old age for her, as she's been so active and (generally) healthy. Well, it ain't over till the fat lady sings.

Goal is that she's happy, comfortable, not in pain.

And, right at the moment, she is VERY happy to be home and to be having dinner.

Doggie Drugs and Magic Tongues

SUMMARY: How do they do that?

Boost is now back on her benadryl--one and a half small, bright pink tablets twice a day--for that itching that now seems to hit her every year.

Both dogs (and I) are now taking glucosamine, half a tablet for each of them twice a day.

I use little slices of cheese to wrap the stuff in and, although Tika scarfs things down so fast that she doesn't notice, Boost isn't fond of having weird crunchy things hidden in her cheese.

So what I do is, wrap the whole pink tablet in a piece of cheese, and after Boost takes it, quickly keep shoving small bits of cheese into her mouth and wait until she's done swallowing to be sure that she's not spitting anything out. Do the same thing with the half pink tablet and follow-on cheese. Done? Do the same with the big white half tablet and follow-on cheese. Done?

Boost looks at me, hoping for more, licks her lips, then spits out the big pink tablet and the small half a pink tablet.

Sheez!

On A Serious Note

SUMMARY: Think carefully about medications with dogs in the house.

My agility friends Natalie/Joe's very brief story with an unhappy ending: Riley Oct 26, 2006 - Feb 15, 2011

My agility friend Holly's story with a happier ending: Rimadyl Toxicity – I wish I weren’t an expert…