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.

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.

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.

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.

Chub-ette

Jacey, on her first day at my place, 8 April 2006. (She's got more white in that face, now.)


Jacey has weight issues.

When I first adopted her, her ribs and hipbones were invisible--hidden under the extra flesh she put on at the SEGA kennel at Lake City, where she was very much overfed. (She raced at 56-57 pounds. When I got her, she weighed 63 pounds on Lake City's scales.) I brought her home, put her on 3 cups of kibble a day--same as Sam and the same as Jacey's predecessor, Oreo. Jacey lost weight on 3 cups of kibble a day.

Her weight stayed very stable through the first year she lived here--54-55 pounds.

Then she suddenly put on weight--and lost hair on her butt. The vet ran a T4, and her numbers were a bit low. He didn't want to put her on thyroid meds just because of cosmetic issues; the thyroid numbers weren't low enough to justify it, and the weight gain wasn't extreme. But for six months or so, Jacey's food was cut back to just 2 cups of kibble a day. She didn't lose weight, but at least the weight gain stopped.

In the fall, we put her on thyroid meds--one .8 mg pill a day. Two months later, there'd been no change in her weight, her hair, or her T4 results. We upped the dosage by 50%. Within two weeks, she dropped the extra weight, and the missing hair showed up. Once her hipbones came back into view, I put her on 3 cups of kibble a day, and her weight stayed steady.

Two months ago, her weight went up a bit, but she looked okay and I didn't worry about it. But Friday, I had her and Sam outside. She and I stood there while Sam made up his mind which blade of grass to pee on, and I took a good look at her.

Good golly! No ribs! No hipbones! And it's not just that they're not visible. They aren't even palpable! I don't know what she weighs, but she may weigh nearly as much as Sam, who normally weighs 64-65 pounds.

I haven't been overfeeding her. She and Sam eat the same amount of stuff at the same time, and Sam's ribs and hip bones are right where they're supposed to be. Jacey has always been stocky, but you usually can see her hipbones, even if the ribs aren't terribly obvious.



I cut back her food last night and all day today to two-thirds of what she usually eats. She's taken to following me forlornly from room to room, looking pitiful, and drinking every drop of water she can get as if to fill up the empty corners of her belly. For now, I'm going to go back to the 3 cups a day and just get her into the vet's office as soon as I can. I don't know if we need to up her thyroid meds again. I hope not; I don't like the idea that she's gone from "nothing" to a large dose of thyroxine in less than a year. (She currently takes 1.5 pills a day; Sam, who's been on thyroxine for six years or so, takes 2.5 pills a day.) I'm going to ask the vet about additional tests to confirm that she really needs more thyroxine. I'll also ask him about her diet. I know she's not starving--and I ruthlessly cut her food last year for more than six months and she survived--but it's not fair that she has to go without a "normal" food supply because we can't get her thyroid meds right. Poor baby.

Meanwhile, I make fun of her and call her names. I'm so cruel. Poor starving dog. Poor baby.

Poor Porky.

I've been busy...

On my days off, I've been spending time on Ravelry's Help! Chat room or on the Ravelry site itself. I'm editing patterns, talking new users through signing in, and answering questions on forums. Another Raveler with more craft books than she knew what to do with has sent me a huge box of pattern books, mostly crochet--lots of afghans and baby stuff. I've been trying to put together an inventory of the books I have now. Oh, and there's a group of BookCrossers on Ravelry, too. (BCJennyO is there, GreedyReader, Inkognitoh, Tzurriz, Elhamisabel, and a bunch of others.)

And I'm doing craft stuff. I finished a doily last night (I'll block it Monday night and post pictures, Tuesday, I hope). I found a lovely scarf pattern that I want to make after Christmas, and I need to shop for yarn to make it. (Want to express an opinion on colors? I'm looking at this yarn. I sort of like the Melange Moss Grey, which looks much better in the close-up. Or the Tomato on the second page. But I'm planning to shop at a local yarn store, so I can see the colors for real, rather than on-line.) I have a couple of other projects due by Christmas, including that perpetual needlepoint stocking.

The dogs are fine. The increased dosage of thyroid meds is finally helping Jacey. She's dropped some weight--the way she's supposed to on the meds--so I can increase her food quantity back to what it used to be. And her hair is growing back nicely. Sam is--Sam. Still sweet, still goofy, still destructive if you give him half a chance. Now that the weather is a bit colder, both dogs are snuggling with me in my bed all night. They're going in to work with me on Thursday; they need baths.

Dog stuff

Jacey started thyroid pills 9 August: .4 mg morning and night. I had both dogs at the vet last week (for bordatella vaccinations) and had blood drawn from Jacey to check the thyroid levels: barely any change at all, which is what I expected. She hasn't lost any weight on the pills (although weight loss is common, mostly because dogs needing thyroxine usually have put on weight--and she did); and the situation with the hair on her back legs wasn't any better.

So the vet wants to go up 50% on her dose. She'll be getting .4 mg in the morning, but .8 mg at night. I have a supply of .8 mg pills for her and Sam, so this way I don't have to go get pills with a different dosage level. (Sam currently gets .8 mg in the morning, 1.2 mg at night.) About Thanksgiving, I need to remember to compare her condition now with her condition then to see if I think another vet visit and blood test is warranted. (The blood work is $40; I'd like to not have to do it again.)

Ravelry vs. Rosalinda

I spent a bunch of time playing on Ravelry today: entering the new thread and yarn into inventory, entering and approving a bunch of pattern information (I got 8 pattern books in the mail today--6 vintage books from an eBay purchase), entering some other projects I've done. That means I spent not-enough time crocheting today. I got through just two more squares on the Rosalinda doily. Tomorrow, I'm hoping to double that output. Then I can work on the last four squares of the doily Saturday. (I'll still have borders to do after the 12 squares are done.)

***

Finally heard from the vet today. Sam's thyroid meds will stay at the current dosage unless we see more significant weight gain or hair loss.

Jacey starts pills tonight: .4 mg with meals, twice a day. We'll check her status in six weeks (20 September) and decide then if she needs further blood work or a dosage adjustment.

Running Greyhound Table Runner

Last night, instead of working on the new doily, I spent my time finishing and blocking this:





The table runner will go to Southeast Greyhound Adoption (SEGA) as a fundraiser for the silent auction in October.

Today, the dogs had vet visits. Ouch! $190+ later, the dogs are pissed (they had blood drawn) and their mom's much poorer. (Heartworm preventatives have gone up substantially.) Blood test results are due tomorrow. It's just to see if Sam needs his thyroid meds adjusted; Jacey needs to start taking meds, and the vet wants to see what the lab results are to start with so he'll have something to gauge against after she's been on the pills for a while. Both dogs are having weight issues they shouldn't be having (no one has changed food or [non]exercise habits), and Jacey's suffering some severe hair loss on her thighs and butt. Thyroid meds usually work wonders. (And at least those pills aren't outrageously expensive.)

The Militant Greyhound

Check out the militant greyhound. (I know, the first sentence of the write-up says Cleopatra was an American. I've resisted my editor's itch and not sent the guy an e-mail about it.) Other breeds are available, but I'm quite sure the greyhound will reign supreme after the revolution.

If he can bother to get off the sofa.

The dogs pretty much are fine. The vet adjusted Sam's thyroid meds two weeks ago and started Jacey on some new stuff for the bladder issues. I'm not happy with the results in either case, although it may just take longer to see the results for Sam. For Jacey, I'm seeing results, and it's not pretty. (You probably don't want to give a dog with separation anxiety something that "might make her a bit excitable.") So I've cut her dose to 25 percent of the original dose, and we'll see what happens now.

A busy day off

Up at 8am to walk the dogs, so I'd be home to give them pills at 8:20am. (See below.)

On the road about 10am to the store I work in, two dogs along so they could get baths. They appreciate the warm water at the grooming salon (beats the garden hose in the front yard); they're just not nuts about the forced-air dryer. But they behaved well and we finished in about an hour, so that by noon we were on the road to...

The vet's at 1:20pm. It was Sam's annual check-up and shots. He decided he didn't like how much blood the vet had to draw for lab tests and whimpered and whined, which he usually doesn't do. (And I wasn't holding him; the vet tech was. Maybe I'll hold him next time.) Both dogs are on thyroxine, which peaks in a dog's bloodstream 4 to 6 hours after the morning dose. (Hence the pills at 8:20 this morning.) So I'll hear in a few days whether Sam's numbers look right. But we're not going to adjust his dosage unless the numbers are way off, because he's not showing any of the physical symptoms he normally shows when he needs a change in his meds. (His coat will start going thin in patches, especially on his throat and his thighs, and he'll start to put on weight if he needs a change.) A greyhound's metabolism is so goofy that the lab numbers that are normal for most dogs are absolutely wrong for greyhounds, and the T4 (thyroid) results are notoriously unreliable. (Once, five hours after a dose, Oreo tested as if she had never taken thyroxine in her life; we repeated the test three months later, same dose, and the numbers were fine.) This time, the vet is asking for the test to be run twice--once on a sample containing a clotting factor, once on a sample without the clotting factor; he wants to see if that might make a difference in the numbers. Meanwhile, Sam looks fine, has put on a needed two pounds (he's at 64.0 pounds, Oreo's at 57.2 pounds, which is down 1 pound), and kissed the vet after the bloodletting was over. (The vet likes seeing them: they aren't hyper, don't bite, don't have serious health issues, and never need to go on a diet. And the vet likes hearing of Sam's latest mishaps--the poor boy's such a goof!)

Home by 3, and I gave Sam a buffered aspirin (he often runs a slight fever after his shots). Sam's sacked out on the couch next to me, Oreo's sacked out on one of the dog beds (she was on the couch, too, until Sam insisted on sleeping half-way on top of her, which she resents). I'm working on the baby afghan for KA and watching DVDs. (I'll measure the afghan in a day or two, and if it's long enough, I may stop even though I'm not out of yarn. I've been working on this for four weeks, and I've got to get started on the next one. I'm off work Thursday, so maybe I'll finish off then and wrap the thing to give it to KA on Friday.)