Wednesday 24 July 2013

Back home

Cocoa here. I'm home again. I don't feel like moving much. Melon says it's the sleepy medicine that hasn't worn off yet, or pain from my surgery. Anyway, I'm glad to be home and nibbling on some food.



Melon the hooman here. Cocoa is home! I am so proud of him. I will be watching him carefully, because we're not out of the woods yet in terms of recovery, BUT things are looking good because the x-rays were clear (cancer has not obviously spread to his chest) and the surgery went well. They did find an extra lump nearby; we don't know if it's related to the original one or not but it was removed also. I haven't decided yet whether or not to send the samples to the pathologist - if you have any recommendations, please share.

And me? Well, I'm the only one one home tomorrow, but I'm not going to stress about the possibility of lying in bed unable to get up to care for Cocoa. I'm just going to get up tomorrow morning and do it. I won't let you down, Cocoa!

Tuesday 23 July 2013

POTP needed

Melon the hooman here. Thanks everyone for their good wishes.
Cocoa may not have made it clear that he has a fairly aggressive tumour, not a benign one.

This is what it looks like:


It's 13mm in diameter.

He will be going into surgery tomorrow to have it removed. First though we will do an x-ray, to see if it has already spread to his chest and lungs. If it has, we won't be operating, just caring for him as best we can. If it hasn't, which is what we are hoping for, then we will remove the tumour and hope for the best.

Here he is tonight:

Getting a chin-scritch from Melon
Cocoa's always been a pretty resilient pig, so fingers crossed!


x Melon


P.S. Cocoa's still doing fine, but I myself have been struggling with caring for him. It's something I have struggled with for a while, linked to my depression and anxiety I think, and I struggle a lot with guilt that my family seems to do most of his care these days. That's for another blog though - I have been meaning to set up a sub-page or a completely separate blog for me so as not to take up Cocoa's screen-time!

Friday 19 July 2013


Wheeek, Cocoa here. I have some bad news for you. I have a lumpy bump under my front left paw, and Melon told me yesterday that it's a 'tumour'. I didn't know what that meant at first but she told me that it's not nice and it might spread so we have to think about what to do. I think the hoomans are still thinking, because they haven't told me what's happening yet, but Melon told me that they'll take care of me as best they can.

In case you were wondering, I am feeling fine though. I am still enjoying my foodables and the hoomans seem to be happy with what the number-machine tells them. I had a b-a-t-h yesterday, which actually wasn't so bad, and Melon said it was so they could give me more hugs. Hugs? I don't really want hugs. All that touching my back and brushing my fur and stuff. Ehh. Oh, but do they come with munchables? In which case, yes please!

Wheek,
Cocoa

Munchmunchmunch

Another post letting you know what's happened in the meantime...

Guess what? I've been doing great! My tooths feel much better now, so I've been eating all the food thrown at me. And boy, is it a lot!

Melon hasn't even stuck foodables in my mouth for a while. No more icky stick, because I've been doing lots of munching myself.

She DID stick-feed me for one day, but I didn't like it so I decided to find food for myself.
I walked over to the other side of the table to a funny plastic thing, stuck my head in, and...



Yum! Much better than stick-foodables.Melon for some reason thought this was hilarious. Hoomans. Who can understand them?

Wheeks,
Cocoa

My tooths

Quick note from Melon: There is actually some much bigger news that Cocoa will tell you about in the most recent post, but since he put in so much effort to make these other posts recently I'll let him share them first as well. Over to Cocoa...

So what's been happening with me lately? Well, my hooman has been pretty busy lately and her moods have been up and down. But a couple Mondays ago Melon came over to give me a hug, which she hadn't had much chance to do in the week before, and she noticed I kept dropping my treat. And other foodables she offered me. Looking into my mouth, she realised I was missing a tooth.

See, we guinea pigs have four front teeth, two on top and two on bottom. They're called 'incisors'. For some reason, my teeth fall out sometimes. I don't know why, they just do. It sure makes it hard to pick up food sometimes. And  one of my bottom teeth has never grown back after I lost it ages ago, I don't know why.

Now, we guinea pigs have to eat all the time. Yeah, I know, you're saying I just love my food. Well, yes, I do. But apart from the fact that food is the most wonderful thing in the entire world, it also keeps my gastro-in-test-in-al system going and my teeth from growing too long. I just gotsta eat eat eat all day long to get enough energy and for everything to keep going.

So because I was having trouble eating my foodables, Melon has been sticking some foodables in my mouth for me. I can't say I like it all that much, but I have been letting her do it 'cause I know she's just trying to help, in her hooman way.

Here's the little stick she uses:




The foodables in the stick don't taste that good either, so I have been trying my best to eat as much of yummy stuff on my own as I can. I must be doing a good job, because she hasn't stuck that stick in my mouth all day, even though a few days ago my bottom front tooth got wobby and fell out too. I've been wondering, have you guys ever had your foodables stuck into your mouth for you?

We went to see that funny man the other day, the one who sometimes does icky things but smells really kind. I sit on his table in a towel while he and Melon talk talk talk. They talked for ages the other day, something about my teeth having grown way too much and needing me to grind down my teeth. See, most people know about our four front teeth. But you probably didn't know that we actually have twenty teeth - we have sixteen others, called molars, at the back. They overgrow easily too - and that's what's happened to mine. The funny man said I must be chewing funny because of the funny stuff going on with my front teeth, so my back teeth aren't wearing themselves down properly.

So anyway, all this stuff basically means Melon and her family are stuffing me with food. Everyone's been handing me food all day, I guess 'cause I've been munching all of it, and every once in a while they put me on this thing:



This tells them whether or not I need more foodables through the stick.
The hoomans are hoping that the machine will keep telling them good things and that my teeth can wear back down through all the munching. If they don’t, I'll have to have a den-tal pro-ce-dure to grind down my teeth. And even if we do they can grow back real quick. But Melon says we should stay opti-mistic, because I had one of those four years ago and it hasn't really been a problem again until now, so between my eating well now and the backup plan of the pro-ce-dure, things should work out okay for me.

Thanks for reading. Melon and I are going to try and catch up on blogs soon.

Wheeks,
Cocoa

Friday 5 July 2013

Just a short note

Oh dear. We haven't done a good job at keeping my blog up to date, have we? Or, to be more specific, my hooman hasn't helped me to keep my blog up to date. Humph. At first, once in a while I would come up with a few things I wanted to share with you guys, then Melon would say "Coke, I can't think about that right now." or "Coke, how can I do that while I'm feeling like this?" Well, how does she think I will feel if my blog isn't updated? Or how will my pals feel if they don't hear from me?

 And now a lot of stuff has happened, including some not very nice things happening to me. Melon says we'll bring you an update as soon as we can. (I hope so.) But for now?



I'm still here.



I'm still cute.

That's all.
Cocoa


Edit: We just found out about the loss of The OP Pack's Thunder. We are shocked. We meant no disrespect by this post, we had no idea. We are so sad to hear of his passing and know he will be sorely missed. Big, big hugs to the rest of the pack, including Kathie and Dad. Our thoughts are with you.