Thanks, JayZeeJay. I will pick up some lactulose. It will be especially important right after the surgery which is scheduled for Monday. Do you know if vets ever use mesh to help repair a hernia like they do with people? I'm afraid since the surgery is a re-do, there might not be enough muscle to close it properly. I need to get an extra plastic head cone, too, because last time Cooper chewed out several stitches during the Christmas holiday and I ended up stitching him back up myself. I have one cone but he thrashes his head around and last time he broke one.
My oncologist switched me from anastrozole to letrozole a week ago. Both pills supposedly suppress estrogen production and hence keep my ER+ cancer from recurring. However the anastrozole wasn't working very well based on the estrogen level in a recent blood test. We'll see if the letrozole does any better. I'm hoping that my recent slight reduction in appetite might be due to the new pill. I still get hungry, just not out-of-control hungry, and I spend less of the day thinking about food. It would be nice to at least get one benefit from this pill, since the possible side effects include hair loss, bone loss, stiff joints and higher cholesterol
Here's a silly thing I do when I know I need to undereat slightly. I have my morning coffee in a "special" coffee cup. It is from a Native American craftswoman and has a stylized raven on it. I think of it as my "power" object and tell myself that drinking out of this cup will give me strength for the day and help me eat well. It gets me focused and thinking in a positive way instead of being po'ed that I have to pass up junk.