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.)

2008 Ravelympics--Day 1

In the past week, I started and worked on a couple of my Ravelympic entries, thus disqualifying them from "competition." I made a small, thread bookmark:



And I finished the redo of the vintage* doily...but I'm probably going to rip out that last row and redo it. I think the leaves are too long. Much as I hate picots, I'm going to put little picot-like leaves on it instead of the spikes. And I may try to reblock it. I like the colors well enough, but I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out. At any rate, it can sit for a couple of weeks--until the Olympics are over--and I'll decide then.



These pictures were made with my old camera; the Sony is still in the shop. But I had a terrible time getting the old camera to produce photos with decent color and focus.

Today, at 8 am EDT (the official kick-off time, since that's Beijing's 8 pm), I started my first Ravelympic project. So far, I'm 13 rows into a doily. I'll try to get at least another row done tonight before I stop working on that and start on the bill-paying freelance work. (And speaking of bill-paying, that's something else I need to do.)

The dogs seem fine. Sam's still taking his Cipro, and it's not as rough on his stomach as the Clavamox was. No idea whether it's really working, though. He takes the last pill on Monday, so we'll see how he's doing on Wednesday. And Jacey's backside has cleared up. I'll wait until Wednesday to contact the vet about her thyroid dosage, once I see how Sam's doing and find out whether I need to take Sam back in.


*The Web site the pattern came from called it a "vintage" pattern. The pattern is younger than I am. Ouch.

ETA: Sweet Dreams doily through round 14 at the end of work on day one:

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.

Sam

Sam clearly has nothing better to do than scare me.

Last week on antibiotics, he drank and peed less than normal, but he seemed to have no problems.

Less than 48 hours after he finished the antibiotics, he's drinking nonstop...and peeing likewise. He's probably had 60+ ounces of water in the last 4 hours or so, and he's whining to go out to pee nearly every 30 minutes. (He's fallen asleep, so it's been nearly an hour now. But it was 8:25, 9:03, 9:35 after I started the actual clock-watching.)

Both dogs are going to the vet tomorrow. If I didn't already have appointments for them, I'd be calling first thing in the morning, anyway. The appointment is at 3:20. I've set an alarm to remind me to feed the dogs at 10:30 so they can have thyroid pills with food about 5 hours before their vet visit. (Pills with food 4-6 hours before blood is drawn.)


Month-old photo; he'd just had a bath. He wants a check for product endorsement.

I surrendered

I got off work early today (a bit slow at work), and was home by about 5:30. But dinner-with-antibiotics for Sam was scheduled for 8:30.

There's no way I was enduring the evil eye from two dogs for three hours. And I didn't want to delay my own dinner that late. And--eating dinner in front of two starving dogs? Not even a consideration.

So I had dinner at 6, and the dogs had 2/3s of what they normally would have had for dinner. And at 8:30, they had the same amount again--with pills, this time. That puts them up about half a cup of kibble for the day. They'll survive.

And things are much pleasanter around here when starving hounds have been fed.

I'm off work tomorrow. I have no idea when I'm going to feed the dogs, but I think I need to shift the schedule a bit later so that Saturday's schedule won't be so out of whack. I get up at 10:30 on Saturday, work 12:30-9, and won't get home much before 10 pm, when Sam gets his last pill. I don't want to have to get up early on Saturday to give Sam a pill on schedule, but I don't want him a couple of hours late for the last pill, either. (It probably doesn't matter how close to "every 12 hours" he gets his pill as long as he gets it with food, but I'm a bit OCD. Humor me on this.) So on Friday I'll shift his morning pill a bit later (which means I can sleep later), then shift his evening pill even later. But I'll have to hold out for 12 hours tomorrow under reproachful stares.

I can do it. I'll show them who's boss.

Or maybe I'll go shopping around dinner time...

Unhappy dogs

The dogs are ticked off with me.

I got off work at 5:30, home from the grocery store at 6:30. But the dogs can't have their dinner until 8:30, because that's 12 hours after breakfast, and Sam's supposed to take his pills every 12 hours with food. And I've ratcheted the time schedule earlier and earlier for a few days, but if I ratchet it back another hour tonight, I'll have to get up way too early to feed them tomorrow. And by the end of the week, we'll be all out of whack because I have to work 12:30-9 pm on Saturday, and I won't be home to do odd-hours feedings, so I actually want to move the meal schedule to later than 8:30 over the next few days.

So the dogs are giving me the evil eye. And I'm hungry, because I'm not going to sit and eat dinner in front of them. Dinner soon, guys--okay?

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.