●Message of July 5, 2007, 9:28 P.M.
Mr. Okawa,
I'm sorry for not replying sooner.
Please feel free to use Hana's experience on your home page.
I was so upset that I had failed to take a picture when she was unable to open her left eye, but I am attaching some pictures that I took last night.
This is how wide she can open her eyes now!
I think you can see by comparing the pictures I am sending this time, that before taking Pinfenon, she looked heavy-eyed and lacking in energy, but now, although she is even thinner than she was in the beginning and her cheeks are sunken in, her eyes have changed.
Her eyes are wide open and full of life.
Now they have a very clear innocence.
You can hardly bear to look at her, with her bones sticking out and her legs
covered with pressure sores, but everyone remarks that her face looks like that of a puppy.
Her neck muscles are so weak that she can't move her head, but she constantly follows me and the rest of the family around with her eyes.
She has been unable to leave her bed for half a year, and even with help, she is unable to stand up any more, and when she tries to utter a cry, no sound comes out.
I think that dogs with cancer and other incurable diseases must be rather miserable.
However, it is terribly painful when there is nothing you can do for your beloved dog and have to see it suddenly become unable to open its eyes, become unable to get up, even when patted and shaken; and see it fall into a light coma and be chronically dehydrated, with no appetite; and symptoms appear one after another and there is no way to fight them, so the dog gets thinner and thinner and more and more weak.
For Hana, who has to keep lying down all the time, and for us, taking care of her, the only good thing is that her eyes are clear and not clouded by cataracts; so I want to keep giving her Pinfenon and fight like mad to protect her eyes.
I want to know if there are any good ways of preventing pressure sores, so could I please ask you to inquire about that when you meet various doctors?
Memory foam beds don't help because she is too light, so that they push back against the pressure applied to their surface.
Of course, the bed she has been using up to now isn't any good, either, as the pressure becomes concentrated on the points of the body that sink the furthest into it. The redness around the joints of her forelegs is getting worse with every passing day; so I felt I just had to do something and have ordered a product made for human use: a mat for preventing pressure sores. It has a wave pattern and is filled with beads. I was told that it would take a week to reach me.
I am changing her position and massaging her even more than before, and I suppose that since her shoulder blades are sticking out, she is better off with my doing this, as opposed to not doing it, but it is no more effective than putting water on a burning-hot stone.
Pressure sores break out here and there and use up nutrients, and then she becomes weaker and the sores are less likely to heal...
I am afraid of getting trapped in that sort of vicious cycle.
Anyway, I am trying things like applying a soft gel pad at room temperature, or using bubble wrap to prevent her body from touching the surface of the bed; but right now, I am eagerly awaiting that wave-patterned mat with contact points that change every time the body moves, which supports the body on those different points.
Please let me know if you happen to hear of something better that I can do.
Please excuse this long message.
I really appreciate the way you always respond to my inquiries.
It has been getting hotter and hotter, so please keep up with your work in good health.