NeylasMom
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I would rule out a UTI first.
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Thinking of Carol, Jeff, Macy and Greg. Two in one day is just too much. Thank you.
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Aww, he looks so much younger even though that was only 2 years ago. Thank you everyone. I am just laying here not functioning at the moment, but Violet is comforting me. Not surprisingly the girls weren't particularly interested in sniffing Z, but when his body was gone and I let them back in Violet immediately went and layed where he'd been. Moments later I layed down on the futon mattress and she immediately came over and curled up against me as close as she could get with her head in my lap. Skye is just sleeping on the couch. I need to get moving. I have dog pee to clean up and the girls need a decent walk.
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My boy is gone. He yelped when she started the sedative injection, just like Neyla did, but otherwise he went peacefully. We spent today mostly like this: I take comfort knowing it was time and having had a peaceful day with him today, but I don't think it's really sunk in yet.
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Thank you. I'm okay with it. We are just making the best of the little time we have left. After a morning snack and meds we have been curled up snuggling all morning. Its a gorgeous day so we're enjoying fresh air and a breeze from outside as well. Things are as peaceful as I could hope for. Hopefully they stay that way until she comes and through the visit.
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Thanks Annette. The image of Zuri running and playing again off leash makes me smile. And just reassures me that this is right. My vet emailed me back. The latest appt she has is at 3. I was hoping she could?come after his dinner in the early evening. :(
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I do Lori. I honestly don't know what I would have done without you guys these past few weeks. I don't want to burden my friends with every detail of this emotional rollercoaster, but this is a safe place to do it. Its unfortunate that we have to find these bonds this way, but I'm grateful to all of you.
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And I for you.
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Lori It looks like my vet will be coming tomorrow as well. I have to confirm and schedule a time in the morning as I just sent her an e-mail since its late, but we talked yesterday and she told me she would be available. I seriously don't know how I'm going to get through this. I love my boy so much. He's just...him. Just such a good sweet dog. 10 years together is so long and yet not nearly enough. I can't imagine my life without him.
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Positive is positive. Negative can often be false negative. Meaning there wasn't anything in the tiny little sample they looked at or it was the wrong life stage so nothing showed up, but worms are still present. I wouldn't be at all confident about a negative fecal a week later.
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Well the Amantadine is on board. I gave it with his other dinner meds again. I would have liked to go to my friend's this evening before she heads out for vacation, but I wanted to supervise. I am anxious as hell and watching him like a hawk, but everything seems fine so far. Carol, how soon did you notice improvement from it, do you know? I'm really hoping for a good night's sleep tonight. I am feeling particularly drained today, but I know lack of sleep does this to me. Really hoping tomorrow is a better day for both of us. Though I will say we did have an enjoyable trip to the vet, as weird as that may sound. It was a gorgeous cooler day and they called after we were already in the car to say the vet was running late. So instead of getting on the highway we took the back roads so we could drive the whole way with the windows down. Zuri thoroughly enjoyed smelling the smells and feeling the breeze: And I stopped at the Starbucks drive thru to get me a giant coffee and Zuri got a puppacino: I'm honestly not sure if he's ever had whipped cream before, certainly not in that quantity so he was really happy. I always know he loves something when his eyes bug out of his head. I saved some of the puppacino for his blood draw so that was totally stress free and otherwise we waited a while for blood work results chilling on a bed in the acupuncture room together. Plus he got to pee on all the things outside the office, which he loves. Anywho, going to try to focus on some TV before we head to bed. Catol, hope Macy has a good night and a better day tomorrow as well.
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Okay, here they are: RBC: 9.12 in 2014, 8.42 in 2015, 7.64 in May, 8.02 in July, & 7.39 today HCT: 62.1% in '14, 58.4% in '15, 49.9% in May, 54.6% in July, 50.4% today HGB: 21.6 in '14, 19.6 in '15, 18 in May, 18.8 in July, 17.4 today Basically, they all seem to be trending down, but possibly with age though these latest are the lowest in almost all cases. From what I looked up a month or two ago, he's at or just outside the low end of normal for a greyhound for all of these things.
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Those were within normal range. You could argue they are on the lower end for a GH, but I think given his age that's normal. I can post the actual values shortly.
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Thanks.Totally exhausted, mentally and physically. But with the addition of an extra fan, Z is resting comfortably now. And the cycling event ends in 10 minutes so we will be okay. I just really need to get work done.
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Just wanted to get some input on some blood work values we got today. We know Zuri's kidney values have been slowly creeping up over the past few months. So today it was no surprise that his BUN & creatinine were up again (62 & 2.8 respectively). Those numbers I'm not so concerned about. What I'm wondering about are two things: First, the vet feels he's anemic, but she didn't have his previous records in front of her. His platelets and reticulocytes are definitely low. They were low once before and the oncologist seemed unconcerned, but they also bounced back up and are now even lower than they were. Here's some values over time: Platelets: 116K in 2014, 109K in 2015, and then this year: 106K in May, 88K in July, they were up in early Aug but I don't have the values in front of me and today he's at 78K. She was pretty sure there was no clumping and this is an accurate reading. Reticulocytes seem to hover around 24 for him, but sometimes are in the high teens. Today they were at 6.7, outside the normal range (low end is 10). I know anemia can accompany CKD and these values do seem low for him - thoughts on whether you would consider him anemic? He is on several things that can have blood thinning effects (NSAID, Curcumin, high amt of fish oil), but she was skeptical that could be the cause. If he is, anything I should be doing? Second question - his Calcium & Potassium seem fine. His Phosphorus is within the normal range, but a bit higher than it's been historically. It's almost always right at 3.5 (normal range is 2.5-6.8). Today it was at 4.4. I remember when Cisco had CKD that the thinking was that in a CKD animal even the higher end of normal for Phosphorus is probably abnormal. Obviously he's hovering right in the middle, but at what point do you think Phosphorous levels become concerning and might warrant use of a Phosphorous binder in an animal that you know has kidney disease?
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We cannot catch a freaking break. Get home after a really long vet visit and some panting in the car on the way home and there's an AC cycling event going on. I didn't know it was happening or I would have cranked the AC this morning and now I can't override it. Its not that hot, not like when it broke, but warm enough that he's been panting non stop since we got home. Which potentially interferes with me trying the Amantadine again because of he ends up super tired I won't know why. I'm beyond frustrated.
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Vet thinks toe is just some inflammation in the joint capsule, not an issue with the bone so that's good. No idea what it's from, doesn't think there's something in there so I'll just resume Epsom salt soaks. I did one last night and it seemed somewhat improved this morning. So basically that's a mystery, but not overly concerning so long as I can keep him comfortable. The bloodwork not surprisingly means no Zoledronate. Creatinine is up to 2.8 and BUN is 62. She also thinks he's slightly anemic, but I have to look back at old values when I get home because I think his platelets were low before and then bounced up, but I remember asking the oncologist and her being unconcerned. I can revisit that with her on Tuesday if we get there. My vet suggested trying the Amantadine again when I'm home to supervise. I asked about a liquid to try a lower dose, but she said in some cases that can cause the side effects so she seemed to think I should just go for it. I will probably try it tonight. I had to increase his Gabapentin again last night so we're close to running out of options.
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Glad you have a vet on board who is on board and that she's feeling good right now. I am trying to drown my sorrows, but I can't seem to drink fast enough.
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For the love of! I came home and the knuckle of the toe above where the sore was is swollen and hard and it's clearly bothering him when he walks. I've wondered all along if he didn't get grass seed or something like that in the toe when this all started and now I'm very suspicious. Or he has cancer in that toe now and the sore was just an odd coincidence. Either way, this isn't good. So I changed our blood draw appt tomorrow to a vet appt so she can take a look. In the meantime I will try not to jump the gun like I did with the butt licking, and I'm going to soak the toe, but :( How's Macy doing? Hoping you have a better report.
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Pogo Thanks for popping back in Annette. How are you doing?
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Love both of your 6 words. The no AC thing really took it out of Zuri yesterday. I think all of the panting dehydrated him so he just slept a lot yesterday. Definitely a low bounce day though he did play once. Thankfully I am on my "give it 2 days" plan and recognized that that was probably what was going on so I was able to just tell myself to see how today is and this morning I have my normal bouncy dog back. However, I am at this point fairly confident the news on the kidney values won't be good. But I always knew another Zoledronate treatment was a total long shot. Day by day, day by day.
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Zuri's belly has gotten dark and spotty and is now totally covered with fur when it used to be totally bare. Maybe that's why he runs so hot?
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Patricia McConnell had a blog post today remembering her dog Lassie where she summarized her dog in 6 words. Here's what she wrote when she lost him: Lassie went home today. I am thinking of the famous story about Hemingway, in which he challenged his writer friends to write the shortest story possible. All agreed that he won. Here’s what he wrote: For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn. Since then, summarizing one’s life in six words has become something of a parlor game. I have done so for Lassie, summarizing what she means to me in six words, and I think it would bring pleasure and comfort to everyone who reads this blog if you were inspired to do the same for your own special dog, and to share them, if you would, for us all to read. Here’s for my Lassie: French Vanilla. Ice Cream. Summer Day. Off you go dear Lassie, my god how I loved you. http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/six-words-to-summarize-your-dog Anyone want to share their 6 words for their dog, gone or still with us? Here are mine for Zuri: Silly boy. Handsome man. My rock.
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The oncologist we see is in DC and it's an hour drive each way with traffic. So I've been trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to set things up so we get the bloodwork done with our regular vet in advance and the oncologist reviews them before we drive down. So that's why there's the delay. We are going in to run the bloodwork and I will get the results that day, but our oncology office is closed on Fridays and of course is closed for the holiday weekend. I would have liked to take him in earlier this week so we could discuss before they closed, but she wants them close to the treatment so Friday was the earliest she was willing to go. I just wanted to have some information in case he took a drastic downturn. I certainly wouldn't want to be increasing meds just to get through the weekend to get to the treatment only to learn Tuesday morning that he can't have it. So basically, I will have the info on Friday and it will either be really clear - values haven't changed, we're good to go, values have skyrocketed, it's definitely out - or creatinine is right at 2.6 and maybe I'm going to try to argue with her Tuesday morning. And I don't know that there is any flexibility. We had a pretty in depth discussion about this last time and she basically said she took an oath to "do no harm" so if his values were getting higher to the point where she thought it might send him into kidney failure she wouldn't do it. I understand that, but I also think that when we're seeing the values fluctuate seemingly independently of the Zoledronate timing and it's only going up small amounts when it does, that it would be reasonable to repeat it if the values weren't sky high and symptomatically he's doing well. But I won't worry about it too much until I see the results. It's certainly going to suck if he's right at 2.6 and she still says no. On a positive note, our AC is fixed! It's starting to cool down and Zuri is sleeping soundly with no panting.
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So glad to hear Macy is doing better! And that really sucks about your vet. That is absolutely the last thing you should have to deal with when facing this. I hope at some point, even if it's down the line that you'll tell them why so that hopefully they smarten up. We are still without AC though someone should be here to look at it in a half hour. It was a little better overnight, but still required an ice pack change and some wetting down for Z a couple of times throughout. Since we've been up Zuri had been back to panting off and on with a lot of on though he's resting comfortably now. I really hope this is something they can fix immediately because I hate him being at all uncomfortable. If they can't, I checked and the Lowe's across the street has fans in stock so I will go pick up a couple of those big box fans if I need to. In other news, I called the oncologist back today. We're scheduled for bloodwork on Friday and presuming his kidneys are okay Zoledronate on Tuesday, but because of the holiday weekend they can't review the bloodwork until Tuesday morning and I realized knowing whether or not we can do the Zoledronate might be important if things change over the holiday weekend. So I asked at what point would she say no to the treatment and the answer I got was if his creatinine were above 2.5. Well his value last time was 2.4. Give me a break. I mean, we have gone a period of 4 weeks with no change, but I don't think we're going to be so lucky this time. And at this point I don't even think it's likely it's the Zoledronate doing it. Anyway, I knew it was probably a long shot and obviously we have to wait to see what the results are, but that's a bit disheartening. Good to have the information though.