A Warm Wednesday in July

There's been knitting.



That's the hat for the Halos of Hope / Buffalo Wool Company collaboration: they asked on Facebook for 25 volunteer knitters who could knit hats and get the hats back to them by July 31 (for presentation at Stitches Midwest). I got the yarn on June 21, and I had the knitted and blocked hat out in the mail on July 1. The pattern is the Brier Toque--nice, mindless knitting.

(No, I never remembered why I knitted a stitch marker into the hat in that spot. I just cut it out before I blocked the hat.)

And there's the finished Wee One Elephant (available in a Craftsy Class) for Sean and Joey's little girl, due in August:



It's a seamless piece. You start with the head. Then you pick up stitches on the head to knit the ears. Pick up stitches on the neck to start the body. Put arm stitches on waste yarn (like a top-down sweater) as you continue the body. Afterthought legs. Finish the arms. And pick up three stitches on the backside to knit the tail. Nothing sewn on, nothing to pull off.



The pattern has three different heads (elephant, hippo, bunny), one body, three different sets of finishing (face and tail). I used very practical Red Heart Super Saver: the whole thing can go through the washer and dryer.

I've also been working on the shop sample of Curiosity. Nothing to see here, though: a long scarf in orangish yarn is a long scarf in orangish yarn--early pictures look much like current pictures. I'm about one-third of the way through the yarn.

There've been dog issues.

I've been feeding raw turkey necks: I'd cut necks in half and each dog would get a half one day, then the other half two days later. The dogs were fine with that for weeks.

So Tuesday I gave both dogs a whole turkey neck each. Silver's been fine, but this evening Sam's backside exploded. (I was planning to go to tonight's SEGC meeting to hear Dr Kellogg, but Sam got sick two hours before the meeting.) For the better part of three hours, Sam whined to go out every 10 or 15 minutes. (Bissell Little Green Machine. Really. Especially if you can get to the stain right away.) The poor boy finally fell asleep about 8pm. I didn't give him any dinner--and no dinner or bedtime meds. We'll see what happens in the morning. I have a package of two turkey necks in the refrigerator. Silver can have some, but I don't think I want Sam to have even a little bit.

And Silver's been having problems: yelping when she tried to stand up after lying down. She saw Dr Bird last week and did a week of Rimadyl, as well as Methocarbamol and Tramadol snagged from Sam's stash. She felt better but I still asked Dr Tison for x-rays yesterday. I wanted to be sure there wasn't a problem that a chiropractor could make worse, and x-rays now will give us baseline films. Mostly, of course, I wanted to be sure there was no sign of serious trouble (like cancer): I've lost two greyhounds, both girls, both 8 years old, and Silver turned 8 in May. (Oreo broke her leg and threw a blood clot in surgery. Cancer didn't show on her x-rays, but why else does a dog break her leg standing in the living room? And Jacey died of immune mediated thrombocytopenia.)

Silver's x-rays showed signs of arthritis in her left shoulder and at the thoracic area of her spine. (Sort of at the back end of her shoulder blades.) This is exactly where Sam's trouble started, although the two dogs have very different backgrounds: Sam never raced, although he has spent years doing the stairs in my condo and getting on and off the furniture; Silver, meanwhile, had a racing career, but hasn't done stairs or climbed on furniture in the two years she's been with me. But Silver now has prescriptions for her very own supply of Methocarbamol (aka Robaxin, a muscle relaxer) and Tramadol--the same meds Sam takes.  (But no Rimadyl. Potential complications from NSAIDs are scary, so I want as little to do with them as possible.) I bought Silver a microwavable heat pack today. I'm concentrating on brushing the teeth of both dogs--since giving the dogs turkey necks is turning out to be a problem (again), and I've signed Silver up for Jen's obedience classes. She's very good with people and might be excellent as a therapy dog--if she'll ever decide that she wants to do what she's told.

(Silver is usually a wuss at the vet's about anything painful, so I was surprised that she didn't let out a peep when Dr Bird was stretching her legs out last week during the exam. But Silver got payback: she nearly nailed the poor vet tech who tried to take her temp on Tuesday. I put Silver's muzzle on her when she went back for x-rays, and they gave her back to me with the muzzle still in place. They're no fools.)

Trivia:
--The router died this morning. I bought a new one and installed it. Netgear advises you to stick with the network name they've pre-assigned your router. Of course. It advertises their product. (And I so wanted to name my network "NSA Surveillance Van.") I've tried to register the router with Netgear, but they insist I've got my email address wrong. Really? I have a request in for tech support. Their email acknowledging the support request said there'd be a second email with a password for me to use online. That email never arrived. I'm considering joining the Luddite movement.

--I looked into getting a new phone and a new phone service: I like Sprint, but I'm tired of losing phone calls at home because my signal reception is so bad. (And when your router dies and your phone can't find a wifi network as a substitute for the mobile signal, you're really screwed. Luddite.) Anyway, the phone contract was up 7/1/2013. The Sprint contract isn't up until 9/29/2013. I put a note in my calendar to remind me in September.

--There are issues with getting Sam a heartworm test--namely that (a) he hates car rides and stresses to the point that his breathing and heart rate get scary, and (b) he's currently suffering from explosive diarrhea. So I've got a written prescription for Silver's heartworm meds, and I'm going to send that to Drs. Foster & Smith, ordering meds just for her, but sharing them with him. He'll get his heartworm test the next time he has to be at the vet's for something else. I'm also ordering some Missing Link Joint and Bone Health formula. Let's keep Silver as limber as possible as long as possible. I have to snail-mail the written prescription to Drs F&S, and I have no stamps. I never have stamps. I pay all my bills online, and every time I buy a book of stamps, the USPS ups the rate immediately afterward. (By refusing to buy a book of stamps, I've single-handedly kept your postage rates down.) I'm going to dig around and see if I can find a couple of old 37¢ stamps to slap on the envelope to mail this out.

--I'm a member of Book of the Month Club. Actually, it's BOMC2. It's no longer the old deal where they'd threaten to send you a book you didn't want unless you returned the reservation card in time. Now there's a plan where you can get a book for $9.99 every month--including postage. You just keep a reading list on their site, and once a month they send you the top book of your list. This is how I've gotten craft books on the cheap for a couple of years. Currently, the website says my next book will ship on June 28. 'Scuse me, folks, but it's July already. (The book on the top of my list is patterns for granny square blocks--500 of 'em.) I emailed the website people and asked what's up with their shipping. They said they'd respond within 3 days. Their 3 days is up late Thursday.

(I'm back-dating this post so that it appears to be a Wednesday night post. After all, that's when I started typing it. I don't want to change the title just because it's now Thursday morning.)

Third Time's a Charm

I took another urine sample to Sam's vet. This time, Sam's water bowl was empty for nearly 12 hours before I collected the sample.

The verdict?



Perfect. Perfect concentration--exactly in the midrange, neither too concentrated nor too dilute. And no protein. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

The boy is peeing like a champ...and I'm breathing much easier.

Never thought I'd be grateful for a dog who gulps his food.

But yay, Sam!

Three days of Panacur and six days of Metronidazole didn't help his digestive issues, so the vet changed Sam over to Tylan powder (.5 ml, 2xdaily for 3 weeks). Tylan tastes lousy, I've been told, and folks who have mixed the powder with their chow-hound's food have found Fido going on a hunger strike.

Sam is used to getting his thyroid pills wrapped in a bit of cheese, and he just gulps them down. (Thyroid pills are tiny; putting them in cheese is a way to make sure they get swallowed, and not just flicked across the room by someone's big, floppy tongue. Both dogs get thyroid pills.) So I've just been using a bigger piece of cheese and putting the Tylan powder in the center (with a thyroid pill) and rolling up the cheese and popping it into the boy's mouth. He's gulped his meds down like a champ!

But I'm tempted to ask the vet to check that they actually gave me Tylan powder...and not unadulterated caffeine. After two days on the Tylan, Sam's got more energy than the Energizer Bunny, and he's throwing his toys and chasing them.

Then, of course, he sacks out on the dog bed and sleeps the sleep of the thoroughly exhausted greyhound. :)

Sam redux

Sam's home from the vet. He's on Metronidazole (aka Flagyl) for the next 6 days (at least), and Panacur for 3 days. Panacur (aka Febendazole) is a powder you mix with the dog's soft food, so Sam's getting canned food once a day for a while (he doesn't mind the taste of the Metronidazole in the food); Jacey gets to have the canned food, too, and she's delighted.

Panacur is used to fight parasites, and the fecal test from 18 May didn't show any signs of parasites. But Panacur also tends to give a quick kick to a dog's immune system, so in that sense it should be good for Sam.

The working theory is that the dogs picked up some bad bacteria from the chicken that sickened both of them in March. Jacey kicked the bad bugs, Sam didn't--quite. We need to get this under control before Sam suffers permanent damage (like thickening of the intestinal walls) that would cause more serious health issues. Inflammatory bowel disease in dogs can be a nightmare.

The Metronidazole can be extended if necessary, but if it seems not to be working, we'll change to Tylan (aka Tylosin). I'm hoping to avoid this since Tylan tastes nasty (so I've heard), and dogs hate it. It also is a powder, and if you can't get the dog to eat food you've mixed it in, you've got a problem getting it down a dog's throat. Determined pet owners have had to buy empty capsule shells and make their own pills for their dogs. I'm hoping we don't have to go that route.

Sam

Sam's sick.

He's been "not right" since March, when both dogs had chicken backs and had digestive blowouts afterwards. They went on metronidazole for 9 days, although I think their subsequent improvement was due more to my keeping them on a strict and careful diet.

Since then, I've been careful about what they eat, and to help I've used yogurt, pumpkin, and probiotics (not all at the same time!). They had no more raw poultry for two months, and when I started them back on some raw food a couple of weeks ago, I changed them to turkey necks instead of chicken backs (much less fat).

Jacey got better and stayed pretty sound. Sam has been sporadically better--and then worse. He's had at least one all-liquid blowout a month--as well as lots of soft poop--and that's just not like him.

I don't think he's developed an allergy or intolerance to anything he's routinely eating. If that were it, he'd stay sick instead of getting better between blowouts. And he's been on good behavior and hasn't gotten into anything he shouldn't. (He's gotten his muzzle off a few times in the last couple of weeks, but he hasn't gotten into anything--mostly because the potatoes are locked away in a bin, the bread is on top of the refrigerator, and there's really nothing he can get into. I learned my lesson from past experiences, even if Sam didn't.)

Fecal samples for both dogs were checked a few weeks ago: no signs of any parasites.

But Sam had another blowout on Friday. Afterwards, the dogs had rice for supper Friday, fasted Saturday during the day, and rice for supper Saturday night. (When one dog is sick, both dogs go on a restricted diet.) Sam's a bit better today, but I'm taking him to the vet on my next day off. I'm wondering if both dogs picked up a bug back in March (when they both got sick from the chicken)--something that Jacey recovered from but Sam didn't...quite.

Anyway, there are a couple of other things I want to ask the vet about, so we're seeing our favorite vet Tuesday at 11:40.

Meanwhile, he seems to feel well--plenty of appetite for anything I give him.

Laundry, with mother's little helper

I don't mind the washer-and-dryer phases of doing laundry. What I hate is the folding-and-putting-away part.

I've perfected dealing with my work clothes: three stackable baskets on top of the dryer. Bottom basket is underwear, middle basket is work pants, top basket is work shirts (black t-shirts). Work socks go in a pile next to the baskets. (For work socks, I bought 12 identical pairs of black socks. No sock matching. No worries about missing socks or one sock with a hole in it. Any sock goes with any other sock. Heaven!)

But all the other laundry--sheets (which never fold neatly), towels (hey, it's not like they're gonna wrinkle), the off-work clothes--I hate dealing with that stuff. In my condo, the washer and dryer are in a wide closet on the upstairs hallway. On the other side of the hallway is a half-wall (overlooking the living room). It's a nice, sturdy half-wall, just two steps from the dryer. It's a great place to drape sheets, towels, etc., as they come out of the dryer. I mean, there's no place in the laundry-closet to be folding and stacking clean laundry, so that half-wall is terrific.

Until you start using it as the extended closet, and never put the clothes away. Until you have to move all the winter clothes off the wall so you can get to the summer clothes that are buried beneath them.

Today I did several loads of clothes, and I put away the mountain of stuff piled on the half-wall. I started by pulling the sheets and pillows off the bed, which meant first moving Jacey off the bed.

While sheets were washing, I started folding piles of clothes (two laundry loads from today, plus the wall-mountain). I made Jacey stay on one of the two dog beds in the room, and Sam took the other one. Both dogs were a bit sulky.

At one point, I had to go get another pile of stuff off the wall. I came back to this:



Jacey had abandoned her dog bed and settled herself on the largest of the piles of folded clothes. And Sam? He'd moved from "his" dog bed to hers.



As I started whittling down the piles of clothes, Jacey started to get nervous. I was pulling clothes out from under her, and she decided she was going to run out of soft stuff to lie on. At one point, she moved to another pile:



Finally, the poor bereft baby was left with just the mattress and mattress pad to lie on.



Is anyone holding auditions for The Princess and the Pea? I know someone who'd be perfect for the part of the princess.

Finally, I got the sheets on the bed and pillowcases back on the six pillows Jacey hoards at the head of the bed.



Her universe is finally back in order.


The dogs are slowly recovering from a horrendous bout of the stomach nasties. At least this time, they got sick in unison. They're taking Metronidazole and eating lots of rice and yogurt. They seem to feel fine. I'm the one that jumps every time one of them whines and glances at the door. I suspect chicken backs are to blame for this incident, although I'd pulled the excess fat off the backs first. At any rate, I'll be keeping a careful watch on what they get to eat for a while.

Hanging by a thread...

The future of this doily is in doubt.



The Sunburst pattern is supposed to make a doily that is 22" in diameter. This puny thing is 17" right now--fresh off the blocking board.

Worse: this doily, when first finished, rolled, waved, and rippled like the Atlantic Ocean, and a seasick doily is not a very useful one.

I've blocked it, let it dry (at least 3 days), unpinned it, measured it, and photographed it. Now I'm going to let it sit overnight and see what it's like in the morning. If it's staying flat, I'll weave in the loose ends and take new photos. If it has shrunk up much more, or if (as I fear) its present flatness turns out to be temporary, I'll frog this. The doily took way too many hours and uses a ball and a half of good DMC Cébélia thread. If this turns out to be a useless doily, I'll recover the thread; the time is gone for good.


I'm nearly finished with the current BSJ. I've taken a while with this one, and while I've been working on it, I've learned of three more babies (one of which was born already!). So, just a request to my friends: I'll knit as fast as I can, but no more babies until I get caught up. (I've ordered yarn from KnitPicks for the new sweaters, and the yarn shipped Thursday.)


Work has been frantic. Saturday was hectic, and today was long and unpleasant.


Jacey has had a couple of incidents of diarrhea. The first time was two weeks ago, and the dogs had had chicken backs. After they both had issues with some soft, um, output, I defatted the next backs they had. Sam was fine; Jacey was not for a day or so.

Since then, the dogs have had no chicken or anything else off their usual diets. Sam has been fine. Jacey was fine at 9 am Saturday morning, but at noon she had a full-fledged blowout. I was due at work 30 minutes later, so there was no time to go to the vet's to pick up any meds. I called in a request for meds I can pick up Monday (tomorrow) morning. I gave Jacey an Imodium AD before I left for work Saturday, and she did fine on it. Both dogs had rice for dinner Saturday night. And Jacey's been okay since then. But there's something going on with her GI tract, and I'd like to knock out this bug--whatever it is. I'll check with the vets--tell them she's better now--and see if they think I should go ahead with the meds. But I'm sure she didn't get into anything she shouldn't have: she's crated when I'm not home, and both dogs are leash-walked outside and don't get to run around, snarfing up whatever little goodies they find.

A vet visit

Sam sits outside the kitchen while I'm winding yarn. He'd be happier
if I were cooking...or at least dropping food in the floor.


Two veterinary office exams: $70
Two bordatella vaccinations: $40
Two DHPP vaccinations: $37
Two heartworm tests: $63
Total: $210

Two healthy dogs: Priceless.


The dogs had 3-year rabies shots in 2007, so they're good for another year. Sam's weight is up more than a pound from this summer, but he's still under 65 pounds. (He weighed 70 pounds on his first visit to this vet; I don't think he's ever weighed more than 65 on subsequent visits.) Jacey weighs 51.6; her weight is down nearly 10 pounds now that her thyroid issues are controlled. Both dogs have some dry skin, but the vet said their coats look terrific: "Keep doing what you're doing."

Both dogs' teeth look better than the vet expected. Sam's are good (so keep giving him chicken backs). Jacey's are better than they were--the back ones are terrific, but the others are not as good--but we'll delay a dental for her and see if more chicken backs make a difference on her other teeth.

Sam gets an occasional limp. It's not first thing in the morning or when he first gets up, and it only lasts for a few steps before he works out whatever's bothering him. It may be spinal rather than leg-related because it's not an obvious limp on one leg: it's more that he takes a few gimpy steps as we're going outside. (And it's not his toenails...I keep them short enough.) Anyway, the vet didn't find any signs of arthritis or spinal problems on today's exam, and it doesn't seem like anything that merits major diagnostic efforts. I'll just watch to see if something else shows up, but the boy will be 9 in May, so he's allowed to be getting a little stiff.

Sam scares someone else.

Before

When Sam hurt his leg and had to get staples, the ER vet said the staples could come out in 12 days. That means today (Thursday the 28th), so we went to the vet's this afternoon to get the staples pulled.

Sam's favorite vet tech was there, and he was going to pull the staples. Raymond touched the first staple, and Sam screamed.
Bloody.
Murder.

Poor Raymond was so surprised that he dropped everything: Sam's foot, the staple remover--everything. I was slightly less surprised, having encountered Mr Stoic(Not) before. (In the past, Sam has handled muscle cramps about as well as he handled his staples today.)

Sam was muzzled. I figured Raymond and I would feel like idiots if Sam bit one of us when I had the muzzle right there with me. To his credit, Sam didn't even try.

He just screamed.

He screamed when Raymond pulled staples. He screamed when Raymond touched his foot. He screamed when Raymond looked at his foot.

To complicate matters, Sam had been such a very good patient--leaving his staples alone--and the skin had started to grow over the staples. Raymond really had to dig for a couple of them. And Raymond was very apologetic.

I was not very helpful: I got the giggles. For one thing, I knew it couldn't possibly be as painful as Sam was making out since Sam continued to scream when nothing was happening. And I'm a dog groomer. We get dogs who scream over nail trims or ear plucking--and dogs who start screaming and keep screaming even when nothing is happening. It's always embarrassing when it happens: you want to hold both hands in the air and show everyone that you really aren't maiming the little screaming baby. So I knew how Raymond was feeling, and I think it relieved him that I knew Sam was overreacting. Around the vet clinic, vets on the phone with owners got off quickly before the people they were talking to could hear Sam's screams. Pet owners in the waiting room fully expected us to come out of the exam room with a cringing, crying, bloody dog.

Once the last of the four staples came out, we took off Sam's muzzle. Sam then got cookies--at least two of them--and got hugged and petted by Raymond. The vet stuck his head in, too, after he finished his phone call, and sympathized with the poor traumatized boy.

Then Sam trotted out to the waiting room as if nothing had happened. Now he's home, and sleeping the sleep of the exhausted dog.


After

My only question now: How on earth did the ER vets get the staples in his leg without his screaming like this?


Edited to add: Sam has never let out so much as a whimper during regular vet visits: shots, microchipping, drawing blood--Sam takes all that in stride. (So have both the girls.)

Something the vet said...

When I was at the vet's yesterday, he said he got the fax Monday morning from the emergency room with details of Sam's injury. He was reading about the exposed blood vessels, and thought, "How on earth did he hurt himself so badly?"

Then he thought, "Oh, wait. It's Sam. That explains it."

The man knows his patients.

* * *

Sam scared the daylights out of me when I came home, this evening. He met me at the door, and he was standing on three feet, sore foot off the ground. My first thought: "What has he done now?" But I think the foot was just stiff. He'd probably been asleep and not using the foot, then woke up when he heard me come in and limped to the door to meet me. He quickly started walking around without limping.

Sam, no one likes a smart ass.

* * *

There now is a 3-foot long, 1.5-inch diameter piece of PVC pipe secured to each stair. The pipe is wedged and tied to the metal risers, blocking the gap where Sam's foot got caught. And since it's tied to the risers, the pipe won't roll forward from the gap and present a hazard to me or the dogs when we're going up or down the stairs. It's an ugly solution, but it'll do for now. It's a stopgap measure--literally and figuratively.

Lookin' Good

We went to the vet this morning. The foot is doing well. The nearest lymph nodes were very slightly enlarged, which isn't unusual with this kind of injury. But the vet was seeing him more than 48 hours after the injury and is sure the antibiotic is doing its job. In fact, he said we could back off the 1000 mg twice a day and go to just 500 mg three times a day, which might be kinder to Sam's stomach. The vet already authorized a five-day extension of the Cephalexin if we need it, but if Sam continues the way he is, it probably won't be necessary.

As soon as I get next week's work schedule, I can set up an appointment for getting his staples out. So far, Sam hasn't bothered the staples. The vet says that if Sam pulls them out himself, it would not be a problem unless he opened up the wound or created some other problem. But the wound isn't red, isn't icky-moist, isn't hot, and isn't swollen, so Sam's doing very well.

We're putting Jacey on two .8 mg thyroxine pills a day (up from one-and-a-half). I weighed her today, and she was about 60 pounds. (I say "about" because she was still wearing her car harness, which probably weighs a pound or so.)


I got a bit of work done for the Ravelympics today. But I've gotten two phone calls in the last five minutes from people emailing me freelance work...that they need back tomorrow. Oh, well. The work is good for the vet bills.




ETA: Famous last words. Sam started licking his foot. I doused it liberally with Bitter Yuck, a water-based nasty-taste solution. He sniffed (but didn't lick), then moved to the floor on the other side of the room...and on the other side of a chair, so I can't see what he's doing. I've put his muzzle on him, and now he's sulking. Too bad, Sam. I went through all kinds of grief when Oreo had stitches one time and wouldn't leave the injury alone. I'm not doing that again.

Sam and the ER. Again.

Yeah. Three weeks and six days after we spent half a day in the ER with Sam's UTI.

I got home tonight about 9:30 or so. Less than 30 seconds after I got home, I started up the stairs, Sam started up after me and lost his footing. I have spiral stairs with horizontal metal bars on the back/vertical portion of each step. Sam slipped, and his left front foot slid under the bar on a step and got caught.


Oreo on the stairs. You can see the bars in this picture.

He screamed. Lots. I went back down, and grabbed him and moved his back end down a step, so his trapped leg straightened out. He pulled his foot free.

I worried about broken bones, especially because it was a few minutes before he'd put his foot down, and then he limped. But he didn't seem to be in pain when he put his weight down, and he let me handle the foot without complaint, so I thought we'd dodged a bullet.

The three of us went to the corner so everyone could pee and poop if they wanted, and I thought everything was well. We came back home, and I made Sam get on the sofa. I looked at his leg...and saw it. He'd torn his skin open on the top of his foot. It was a bit wide, and you could see a couple of exposed blood vessels.

So, off to the ER. He's got staples in it, and a bandage (with bright green vet wrap). The bandage comes off on Monday. The staples stay about 12 days. I'm supposed to take him to his own vet Monday. (I have to work on Monday. Depending on how Sam's doing, we might postpone the vet visit until my day off, Tuesday.) And we have a five-day dose of cephalexin (antibiotics).

The UTI issue hasn't completely cleared up. Sam took the last of his Cipro on Monday. The plan, then, was to keep him antibiotic-free for two weeks before we drew a urine sample for a culture. After five days off antibiotics, though, we'll have to refigure this plan since the boy is now on a new antibiotic. (I made sure the ER doctor knew this. It may be why she prescribed this particular antibiotic, which isn't one of the ones he's had lately.) Sam's vet might want to extend this round of cephalexin long enough to see if it will knock out the UTI. We'll see what the vet wants to try.


I had all sorts of unpleasant flashbacks, tonight. Shades of Oreo: mom just home from work, freak accident with an injured leg, a dog screaming in pain. And Oreo was 8 (Sam's age). And if you see my post here, you'll see what weird worries I've got about this boy. Now he hurts himself in a freak accident that he's managed to avoid for nearly six years. And the thought of what might have happened if he'd slipped like that when I wasn't home and he'd been trapped there for hours... I'm going to have a hard time going to work and leaving him running around the condo. I may have to rethink how I leave him loose. (He absolutely doesn't do crates.) Tomorrow and Monday, I may take him to work with me. I'd like to supervise him and make sure he's not messing with his leg. (I can muzzle him when I need to. In fact, he's wearing his muzzle now because he didn't want to stay on the sofa next to me. But he just walked over here and has started rubbing his muzzle against the sofa.) Tuesday is my day off, but by Wednesday I need to have a secure way to leave him at home...for Sam's safety and my own peace of mind.

2008 Ravelympics--Day 4 (or 8)

More freelancing on Thursday. Once I got it done, I stayed up late, working while I watched Greer Garson movies on TCM. (Rita Hayworth today. Astaire on Saturday; Kelly on Sunday.)

Today (early this morning), I finished the BSJ for Shari's baby. After that, I made the matching baby booties:





The buttons actually are light green. These photos had to be color-adjusted in Corel. I still don't have a camera that gets purple properly.

I still have 15 projects lined up for the 2008 Ravelympics, but I've finished the more urgent projects.

I started the Mermaid scarf, which is a crochet pattern. I found I disliked the pattern (honestly, forty removable stitch markers?), so I hunted up a different scarf pattern found a nice knitted feather-and-fan pattern that's easy to memorize. I worked a few inches, and I'll take the project with me to work on at lunch. I have some tiny projects queued for the Ravelympics--little cat toys that take less than two hours each--and I'll work on them some evenings, when it's quiet, and maybe too late to work on other projects. Otherwise, I have two more days off during the Olympics...unless more freelancing work turns up. I have one tank top queued up, but that's the project I think I'm least likely to start. I also have a "paw cozy", which might be a quick project. Beyond that, I have some doilies--some fairly easy ones and a couple of smaller but more complicated ones. And there's a Sheldon, and two more BSJs in line. Plenty to do, but none of it "urgent."


Sam's still drinking a lot and peeing a lot. And the vet hasn't called with a new dosage for Jacey's thyroid pills.

2008 Ravelympics--Day 2

Yeah, I know. Today is Day 5 of the Olympics and the Ravelympics. But it's my Day 2, since I lost Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to freelance work. And today I had a good day.



That one is blocking. I'll post a better picture once it's dry and unpinned. The pattern is called Sweet Dreams, and the piece is blocking out to 21" x 15.5". The thread is Ecru DMC Cébélia Cotton, size 10. I used a 1.65mm hook, which is larger than the pattern specified, but my thread crochet stitches can get pretty tight.


Sam finished the last of his Cipro last night. Today, my day off, he's been drinking nonstop and peeing like crazy. This may just be opportunistic drinking: he can do it because I'm here to refill the water dish and to take him out when he wants to go.

Except that it's raining outside, and he doesn't like going out in the rain. So if he's still drinking, despite the rain, it's maybe not opportunistic.

I'm going to send an email to the vet. I think I need to take Sam in for another urine sample to see whether this is really something--or not.

Meanwhile, Ms Crustybutt is much better. But she looks even fatter, to me. She's been on reduced rations of 2.5 cups a day, and I think she's still putting on weight. I want to run her by the vet's office to get a current weight on her, even if we don't see the vet. And now that the skin trouble is cleared up, we need to start her on increased thyroid meds and get her weight under control.

So hurray for the freelance work. It might have eaten into my crocheting time the past few days, but the money will be welcome since I see some vet bills in my future. (Time to buy heartworm meds again, too.)

Making her vet crazy

Jacey's vet called today with results of her T4.

Back in October, when she was taking .8 mg of thyroxine daily, the vet ran a T4 on Jacey. She showed a 1.2 result, which technically is "normal" but not by much. (Below 1.0 is "low"; 1.0 to 4.7 is "normal," but dogs being tested 4-6 hours after they took their pills should test high-normal.) Since Jacey wasn't showing any improvement physically at that dosage, the vet okayed going up .4 mg a day, but we didn't run another T4 then. (The test costs $40, so it's not something you want to do too often.)

Jacey has been on the increased dosage--1.2 mg daily--since October. For a while, that worked, but she's shown signs for the last few months that the dosage is inadequate. However, the vet didn't want to increase her dosage because he considers 1.2 mg a fairly large dose for a 55-pound dog (which is what Jacey's supposed to be).

He drew blood yesterday for another T4 and got the results today. Despite our having gone up 50% on her dosage nine months ago, Jacey is returning just a 1.4 on her blood work when the blood is drawn 5 hours after she took the meds. So we can safely go up on her dosage, which means she'll be able to go back to eating what she and I consider a "normal" meal. God knows what Jacey's doing with all the thyroxine she's taking, but it's not showing up in the lab work, and we can increase her dosage.

Eventually.



But we're working on the crusty-butt situation. It's either worse than it was yesterday, or I'm just seeing places I didn't see before. Either way, the vet wants to clear up the skin situation--or at least give the spray treatment a serious try--before he adjusts thyroid meds because thyroid problems can influence skin problems. He'd prefer to tamper with just one set of conditions at a time.

So Jacey will stay on her current thyroxine dose of 1.2 mg a day. And she'll stay on 2.5 cups of kibble a day (instead of the 3 cups she wants--and Sam gets). About the time Sam runs out of antibiotics, we'll make decisions on whether the spray is helping Jacey and whether we should then adjust her thyroid dose or try something else for her skin.

Meanwhile, the skin problem isn't bothering her--no signs that she's itchy--and the food "deprivation" she's experiencing isn't going to do her any harm. And Sam's coping with the new antibiotic.

But Jacey and her thyroid will drive the poor vet crazy. He takes what he thinks is a safely conservative course, only to find that--for Jacey, at least--it's so conservative as to be pointless.

Da Vet

Sam's still sick. He's drinking so much water that he's very nearly peeing plain water. But there are some white blood cells in there and some bladder cells...way more funky cells than should be there in a boy that's drinking so much and peeing such diluted samples.

So--remote possibility: a stone or tumor that didn't show on last week's x-rays. Far more likely: an antibiotic-resistant infection. (An infection is especially likely since the excessive drinking started about 40 hours after the last dose of the Clavamox.) So, another antibiotic: 500 mg of Ciprofloxacin* once a day for 14 days. Then see how he's doing. If that doesn't clear things up, we'll have to wait for two weeks off antibiotics, then get a urine sample and try to grow a culture and see what antibiotic is effective on the culture. Or, maybe, an ultrasound to check for stones or tumors. If Sam hadn't just had a spectacularly uneventful set of x-rays last week, this latter possibility would be scaring me. But I'm pretty much crossing stones/tumors off the list of stuff I should worry about. Poor Sam is in for another two weeks of antibiotic-influenced poop. I can't tell you how thrilled I am about that...

(The vet tech was taking Sam out to pee. I told him they might need to give him more water first since I'd let Sam pee outside before we went into the office. They brought Sam back to me almost immediately. "Took about 30 seconds for him to decide to go," the tech said.)


The vet drew blood from Jacey to run a new T4 to check out her thyroid levels. He really doesn't want to go up on her dosage because of her physical symptoms; he thinks a dog her size shouldn't be taking more thyroxine than she is at present. If the blood work is significantly low, he'll reconsider. He should call me on Wednesday with the results.

But Jacey has acquired a new problem: a sort of crusty, scaly bit of skin on her butt--right where the hair loss I photographed last week is located. (So I have a photograph from a week ago that shows no problem.) She has a nice Gentocin Topical spray I get to spray on 2 or 3 times a day for 10 days. I'll be getting pictures to document the situation--so I can tell if it's getting better or worse or if my imagination is running the show. I won't be posting the pictures here, but I thought I'd warn you what sort of Jacey-porn you might stumble into on my Flickr account. (The photos aren't gross or anything, and the patch of bad skin doesn't seem to be bothering her.) Once we deal with the skin thing, if her T4 results weren't helpful, we'll talk about what else to check. Meanwhile, the poor baby's getting her food cut back just a bit...but not the full-on cutback I've done before when her weight was crazy. The vet agrees, though: she should be weighing about 55 pounds, not 60-plus.

*The vet said Clavamox and Ciprofloxacin are the #1 / #2 antibiotics for bladder infections.

Doggie update

The vet's office called today. They said the ER had been very thorough, and the best use of my time and money now would be waiting until a few days after Sam's finished the antibiotics, then bringing him in for an exam and (probably) lab work to make sure the infection has cleared up. So I booked an appointment for next Tuesday afternoon (pills run out Saturday night) for both dogs. Jacey will get her thyroid-consult that day, too. In the meantime, I'm going to feed her normally. She won't gain that much weight between now and then, and she's so miserable when I cut her food back a lot. Sam feels well and acts silly. The hardest part, now, is making the dogs wait for their dinners. They're used to eating when I get home, but the antibiotics have to go down with food, so that sometimes means waiting a while for dinner. Right now, we're at 8:30 for meals.

And in knitting projects: I totally brain-farted on one project. Picked a lovely pattern, picked lovely yarn. Then couldn't figure out why the swatch wouldn't come out right. Um, two totally different yarn weights. So I kept the yarn I wanted to use, and I've started another Baby Surprise Jacket / fuzzy amoeba. I'm more than halfway through it, and I love the way it's coming out. I'm going to have to get my camera fixed, though, so photos of the jacket will show the colors correctly: bright light green, turquoise, and dark purple.

Dog Stuff

I took both dogs to the vet's to have them there when the place opened. I was hoping against hope for a no-show, a cancellation, something.

Nope. Although the on-line schedule for the clinic says 8-6 on Monday, the only vet on the premises today wouldn't be in until 10. There already were four dogs waiting for him by 8:10 this morning, and he's booked solid for the day. And he's Sam and Jacey's regular vet.

They said I could leave Sam for the vet's recheck of what the ER did. I'm not comfortable leaving my dogs to hang out all day while they wait for someone to get around to them. So I left the x-rays and urine sample (the ER had faxed over lab results), and brought the guys home. Sam repaid me for that unnecessary car ride with a bout of diarrhea about 60 seconds after I got him out of the car. (Thanks, Sam. I owe you for hanging on.) I sent an email to the vet (via his receptionist, who says that he's bad about emails if she doesn't nag him), detailing my concerns for both dogs and giving my work schedule for the rest of the week. Maybe they'll just need the dogs long enough to draw blood samples; if so, I can run them by before or after work sometime. Then they could see one of the vets (although not their regular one) on Friday. Maybe. We'll see what I hear back from them. But I missed a day of work with what could justifiably be called an emergency with Sam. I can't be taking off for non-emergencies, and I work Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday this week. (And Sam's vet bill for Sunday was just about what I made last week. There's insurance, which will pay part, but not all.)

While we were at the vet's, I weighed the dogs. In March 2007 (which is the only paperwork I can find easily)--before Jacey started having thyroid issues, Sam weighed 66 pounds; Jacey weighed 55. Today? Sam weighed 66.1 pounds; Jacey weighed 61.3. Ouch, Porky! Six pounds may not sound like a lot, but it's an increase of more than 11% of her body weight. Her excess poundage was really obvious on Sunday when we were in the waiting room at the emergency vet. She was lying on the floor, and even lying down, the ribs were invisible, and she looked pudgy. So in my email to the vet today, I told him her weight (as reported on his scales), and also sent him a link to a photo from today showing hair loss on her butt. He'll have to take my word for the missing hip bones and ribs.

I'm a little worried about Sam because he's not drinking as much as he often likes to drink--or as much as I want him to drink. That might be a good sign, since excessive thirst would be a symptom of kidney trouble. He's eating fine, and he feels well enough to try to steal my food. And we're all on a goofy schedule. We skipped breakfast Sunday to get to the ER, so we had our first meal of the day at 2 pm. But 2 pm/2 am is a rotten schedule for trying to give pills, so I'm shifting the schedule back by an hour each time so I can get us onto a decent schedule before I go to work Tuesday. Supper was at 1 am; breakfast today was at noon. Dinner tonight will be 11 pm, so that breakfast tomorrow can be 9:30, as I run out the door for work. (And Sam might go with me, depending on how much he's drinking and peeing by then. And depending on whether I've heard from the vet.)

ETA: I just hollered, "Hey, Porky!" ... and Jacey turned around to see what I wanted! We've got to get her thyroid regulated. And I've got to stop calling her names.

Sam isn't drinking as much as I'd like. Anyone know? Are flavored waters okay for dogs?

No word from the vet, and it's after 5:30 here.

Sam gives me a sleepless night and a long day

A friend's greyhound is very ill. When he first got sick, his mom was hoping it was a urinary tract infection. Although less common in boy dogs than girls, a UTI is generally an easy-to-treat problem. Several people were sending UTI vibes to Travis.

Well, Travis doesn't have a UTI. But the vibes bounced.



Sam had me up every 90 minutes or so last night, to take him out to pee. This is uncommon in a boy who likes his sleep as much as Sam does. (And, like a bad mommy, I was swearing at him every time he woke me up.) By this morning, there was enough light to see what was going on. He was peeing a bit. Then he was straining to pee, and there was some blood in the urine.

4+ hours (and lots of dollars) later: Sam has a UTI. He's on Clavamox, and I have orders to get as much water into him as I possibly can, and to take him out to pee frequently. They took x-rays to make sure there weren't any stones or other obstructions (the possibility that had me going to the ER rather than waiting until the vet opens on Monday). The x-rays look fine: no stones, suspicious masses, etc. (Sam's such a long dog, the x-rays are in three parts.) Tomorrow, I need to get him to his regular vet, who can draw blood to get other tests made; we need to make sure there's not some sort of kidney trouble going on.

I was supposed to work today, but I called out. Actually, I called and said I'd be late, called again to say I'd be later, then even later. When we got home and I fed Sam and started him on his antibiotics, I could have made it to work to do my last two dogs, but coworkers said they had them covered. This is nice, since I'd have had to bring Sam with me, then take him outside frequently, etc. So I missed work today, and I'm off tomorrow, too. By Tuesday, I hope Sam will no longer be peeing his brains out. ;)

I'll have to go back to the ER later with paperwork for the vet insurance claim; I'll need to get signatures on stuff.

ETA: I have a vial of "sterile urine" in my fridge right now. Eeeeww! I'm supposed to take it to Sam's vet tomorrow. "Sterile urine" is urine drawn from the bladder with a needle rather than obtained in other, more traditional ways. "Pee in the cup, Sam" isn't always effective.

They're home.

The vet had a couple of difficult cases earlier today, so he was running behind schedule. Then there was Sam, who was no trouble and whose teeth cleaned up very nicely. But the vet wanted to give the boy time to wake up slowly on his own, since hurrying dogs sometimes leads to the hound flailing around and perhaps getting hurt. So while Sam slept off the drugs, the vet got going on Jacey.

Jacey's back teeth were far worse than the vet realized. The girl won't chew--anything. Sam at least gnaws on a durable Nylabone every now and then. Jacey won't touch the thing. She got off with no extractions this time, but the vet said if she continues at this rate she's going to need more than one dental a year.

Yeah, I know. And I do brush her teeth. But she's got a mouthful of plaque magnets. So she had a rough time, and she probably has no idea why her mouth aches so much. Her gums bled quite a bit, and while she was waking up I think she probably licked at her front legs. The fur on her legs is pink from bleeding gums, and her face looks pretty nasty, and the rest of her doesn't look so lovely, either. (The perils of owning a dog with lots of white on her.) Much of her fur looks like it got wet , got mushed out of place, and then dried that way (which is probably exactly what happened).

So I picked up the dogs about 6:30. They aren't happy that the vet is still limiting their food and water tonight. They're quite sure they aren't going to get sick from the anesthesia (and they're probably right). So far, Sam's had his small bowl of water--and Jacey's, too--and both dogs have had less than half a cup of their kibble. If all goes well, I'll give them another half cup before bedtime.

I've got a couple of furry zombies for my bed tonight. Hurray! (And if someone breathes in my face, I won't gag.)

My vet's bills are quite reasonable. $135/dog for the cleaning, and he didn't send them home with pain pills since he didn't have to pull anything. (The pain meds would have run $40/dog.) But I also needed Interceptor (heartworm meds) for them, which runs $106+ for a six-month supply for two dogs. This is on top of their annual check-up, heartworm tests, and vaccinations two weeks ago. I think they need to get a job.