Last night, I was overwhelmed. Seven prescription bottles were arrayed in front of me:

-- the two on the left side of the table were to be crushed into the food and administered twice a day;

-- each of the three on the right were to be crushed into the food and given only once a day;

-- the two I placed farther away from me, on the counter, were special -- one needed to be administered twice a day, but BEFORE the food -- and the other was to be given whole, orally, after food ... as were the two little capsules in a plastic ziplock bag that remained in my purse.

I just couldn't add those last ones to the gathering right now. I was too overwhelmed.

It's not like I could just grab Mack and drop these pills down his throat. I had to grind them and mix them with prescription canned food thinned with water to a consistency that would easily go through the syringe into the feeding tube that ended up in Mack's esophagus.

My mind was swimming ... all these pills ... distributed over the course of 3-5 hours worth of hourly feedings. How do I space out the dosages? Should he be getting the whole dose in one feeding? How do I manage that, when I have to feed him only 10 cc of food each hour?

And how am I going to force a pill down his throat, when he doesn't want to swallow anything at all? (That one, I decided to leave until later to worry about.)

I finally made the new batch of watery canned food, mixed in the appropriate batch of medications, and set it aside. I cut one of the 1/2-pill medications in two, mixed it with water and injected it into the feeding tube ... about 15 minutes before giving him the food.

Remember Sue said her friend reported that this process is "kinda messy and putzy, but well worth it" ?? I'm sure, once I'm organized, I'll have the confidence of experience that will allow me to report with the same kind of wisdom and perspective. Right now, it's still overwhelming.

BUT -- that was a report about ME. Here's a report about Mack:

He has kept down MOST of what has been put into his stomach through the feeding tube. That's 11 out of 13 feedings, so far, that have come off without incident!

Last evening, at around 8, we administered the food too fast, and he threw up.

This morning, once, he threw up BEFORE Amy could administer the scheduled feeding ... but I think it may have been caused by a little bit of stress -- Amy's home doing this alone, and it's pretty tough to get both syringes (food and water to flush the feeding tube afterward) lined up, find the cat, calm him down, arrange him in your lap so he can't run away -and- you can hold the end of the tube, remove the cap, remove the cap from the syringe, inject the food, inject the water, and close it up again ... all slowly enough to avoid an instant vomiting reaction.

I am so grateful that Amy is taking over the feedings during the day while John and I must be at work. I also give her a lot of credit for discovering a strategy to avoid the stress-related upset: she goes to the cat, rather than bringing the cat to the food. Apparently, Mack hardly notices when she does it this way ... she doesn't even hold him, just sits next to him on the floor or in the basement where he's resting.

Good work, Amy ... and Mack!