Raw Vegan Tacos, Thrown Together Meals, & Furkid Updates

Yesterday I hinted at something that I have tried lately and LOVED and will be eating a lot of until I run out of the ingredients.  That is Raw Vegan Tacos.  I grabbed Romaine Hearts, Sun Dried Tomatoes, Guacamole (because it was cheaper than Avocados), and Cauliflower at a little mom and pop shop and I already had some Coconut Aminos at the office.

I marinated the Cauliflower in the Coconut Aminos and used it as the bottom layer along with the Sun Dried Tomatoes and topped it with Guac!  I have to say it was pretty awesome!

They are messy but I don't care.  The Guac sort of helps with the mess tho.

I will be doing variations of these in the near future - for sure!

I have been saying that my food efforts have been pretty weird as of late.  I either throw something together at the office, on the road, or in the camper.

We are having some issues with our house and I haven't been able to cook there.

This 2nd photo is something I threw together at my parents house.  They didn't have much that was vegan in their house and I didn't know prior to stopping by that I would be eating there.  I made up some Mac and added stewed tomatoes!  I threw some Earth Balance on there, too!  It wasn't too shabby!

There has been a LOT going on the last several months and I wasn't going to mention it on the blog but I feel like I should.

On of the MANY things we have been stressing about is the furkid situation.

In the past month ALL of our furkids have been at the vet as least once.  Charlie - our 17 year old feral cat - was acting weird and I thought he had a stroke but it was a really wicked double ear infection.  We also found out he has kidney failure.

After treating the ear infections we decided to switch his food to a Kidney Diet to help him with that as long as we can.  Since he's a really wild (feral-like) cat and always has been we don't want to stress him more than we have to by taking him to the vet PLUS there has to be 2 vets there to deal with him.

Moving on to the dogs - Cricket (pictured above) had to go in for a check-up and shots.  Riley had to go in for the same - and he had a double ear infection, too.  He has always had Chronic Ear Infections so we are used to it.  However, this time around they tried a new med on him and it seemed to work well.  He had to go in 3 times.  Then there is sweet Paco.  Oh...sweet Paco!  That poor guy!  He's had such a hard time with everything but he's a fighter!

I had to take Paco in for Kennel Cough - it's the only thing we give him - up the nose - we don't vaccinate him otherwise because of his immune issues.  Then a few weeks later we found out he caught something from the kennel so we treated that.  Then his nose started bleeding a little bit and we had him in twice for that.  After finding something on X-Rays we had to decide what to do moving forward.  We are still trying to decide.  He's be in about 4 times already.  They found something in his nasal passage.  It's either something that he sniffed up and got stuck or it's cancer.  Knowing how hard he has has it with other issues his whole life all I can think of is that it's cancer.  GOD!  I hope it isn't.  I think we have the choice made - and that is to have our vet go in and do exploratory surgery and see if she can remove the thing that showed up on the X-Rays.  But I;m afraid because of his immune issues.  Because he has ITP/IMHA that means he might not clot or might clot weird and it could kill him.  Also - if the vet can't remove it - we can't really do cancer treatments because of his immune issues.  From what I have seen about Nose Cancer in Dogs it will grow and morph his face and/or cause seizures.  It seems like a lose-lose situation.  Our vet was on vacation so I need to call her back to see how we are going to go about this.  In the meantime every couple of days he has a slight bloody nose.  We have been treating it with Epinephrine.   These vet bills have been a lot to handle all at once in addition to all of the other stuff we have been facing the last several months.  But those stories I will save for another day.

Paco ~ Update ~ ITP Sucks!

I know I have been hit and miss lately but things have been crazy at home with losing Suzie and a few other things as well as at work.  Today's post is an update about Paco who is still battling with ITP.  Yup!  ITP Sucks!  We lost Suzie on Saturday and Monday we had a scheduled vet appt for Paco and after his blood work the vet told us he was relapsing.  They wanted to see him again today.  After doing more blood tests - the results were still a little 'weird looking' but with his white blood cell and platelet counts being where they should be they said to keep doing what we have been doing.  This is technically GOOD NEWS at the moment that I am VERY grateful for as I don't think I could have dealt with the loss of 2 furkids in a matter of days.  We have to take him back AGAIN next Wednesday.  We we learned from all of this - this past week - is that he will have to be on some sort of medication for his immune system for the rest of his life.  However, because the steroid he's on right now causes him to have stomach/GI ulcers - we will probably have to change the med he is on at some point but because of the issues we will have to do that over time and carefully.  In addition to that med - he's been taking a med to coat his tummy to prevent ulcers - which apparently wasn't working on it's own.  We added over the counter Pepcid as well as a liquid twice/day - twice/week (Tuesday/Friday).  

Outside of the ITP issues he has developed what looks like small bruises in a few spots - near his hip - and now on his tummy - which I thought was part of the ITP - but his vet thinks its separate - and a skin issue.  So tomorrow he starts a pill for that, too.  This poor little guy is on SO MANY pills at the moment!  Eventho he's dealing with all of this - he's dealing with it VERY WELL.  His spirits are up, he's vocal, he's playing, etc.  Eventho we did get some GOOD NEWS today - it's going to be an ongoing struggle from here on out.  Some days better than others, I guess.  I'm just grateful to still have him in my life.

I was reading that "Chia" means "Strength".  Since he's a Chihuahua we've often called him "Chia" as one of his many nicknames.  Now that I know it means "strength" it just seems even more fitting.

Thank you for all of the kind words about my last post on Suzie.  It really means a lot.  Thanks again!  Ongoing positive vibes for Paco - always appreciated, too!

Paco Update!

I have a lot to cover today at My Blissful Journey.  First off - I'm happy to report that Paco is improving!  Last week I mention he was diagnosed with IMHA which stands for Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia.  BUT...in fact he's been diagnosed with ITP instead.  ITP stands for Immune Mediated Thrombocytopenia.

They are similar diseases being that they both attack their own systems and that they are both immune diseases.  The difference being - in short - is that IMHA - is when the Red Blood Cells are being attacked and ITP is when the Platelets are being attacked.

When we took him in last Tuesday his Platelet count was at 9.  Thursday the count was at 3.  This is VERY bad.  Anything under 200 is bad.  We took him in for blood test again yesterday after him being on VERY limited activity for the long weekend while at home with us.  He was at the vet for 3 days prior to that.  His Platelet Count yesterday was 468.  YAY!!!!  Eventho he's 'out of the woods' he's still not up to par.  With ITP there is a long recovery time.  Right now they are shooting for 4 months on meds.  Maybe even 6 months.  OR...maybe even the rest of his life.  BUT we are VERY pleased that his counts jumped that much over the long weekend.  We could be more happy!  Thank you everyone for their positive vibes, prayers, thoughts, etc.  I believe they helped make a difference!  Thanks again!