The past week has been a complete and total shit-show. On top of a few family members having heart issues, Bella is now having them as well. On Tuesday I accidentally kicked her and she cried in a way that I’d never heard before. Immediately after she peed in the carpet in the living room and had a bowel movement while she was laying down hiding in the corner. She was brought to vet because on all accounts nothing was normal about the situation. I felt horrible for kicking her, then to see the aftermath I knew her going to a doctors office was important.
During the exam the Vet noted that she heard some crackling in Bella’s lungs and wanted to do a chest X-Ray. Per the xray she claimed that the striations on the lungs confirm the sounds she heard and wanted to start her on medications for Congestive Heart Failure. I was given Lasix (Diuretic), Enalapril (ACE inhibitor), Vetmedin (for CHF) and then Metronidazole (an antibiotic) to address the stomach problems. $500+ later we were out the door and heading home with her. Being as it was fairly late in the evening, and I wanted to be sure I was fully awake for any possible side-effects to occur I waited until 12 hours after leaving the vet (Wednesday) to administer the first round of meds in addition to her daily Insulin routine. Within 1 hour of receiving the pills her water intake increased dramatically. I expected this with the Lasix but it was needed to remove the build up of fluid around her heart. A few extra wee-wee pads down in the house was just going to have to happen. Note: I’m very good about bringing her outside on a regular basis rain, snow or shine. We just put new floors down in a few areas of the house that have yet to be ‘water proofed’ so an increase of pee pads in case of an accident was a must.
Seeing her reaction to all of the pills I made the choice to only give them to her once daily instead of the recommended twice daily. This decision I believe, is ultimately the only reason she is still alive.
As of Thursday morning, 14 hours after receiving all three pills and having two accidents in the house and consuming approximately 64oz of water because of the Lasix, we started having issues with diarrhea. I assumed there would be some kind of issues there based on the introduction of new medications, even with an antibiotic she’s always had a GI reaction to something new going into her body. But this was something different, this wasn’t just liquid bowel movements every few hours until the Pepto Bismol (2 units) worked its magic. This was borderline amoebic dysentery as she was going both in the house and in the yard every 45 minutes or so. There was absolutely no form to it, pure liquid. I knew I needed to call the vet but I was doing a late mothers-day dinner for Karen so we had dinner. During dinner, not thinking twice about it, I gave her the second round of pills because we were in that 24 hour mark. After the pills we drove Karen back home and then when we walked in the house we entered into a complete shit show. She was vomiting, pooping, gagging. I called the vet. While on the phone explaining all the symptoms she was in the den crapping pure blood. Before the vet even got the chance to say “Bring her in.. this is the emergency fee…” we had the key in the ignition and were on our way to their office.
She threw up a few more times in the car on the way over. I had her on a towel for the blood leaking from her back end and thankfully the towel had enough slack towards her front end for me to catch what was coming out of her mouth. We get to the office, they bring us into an exam room and she continues vomiting. I’m seeing every single one of the pills making an appearance and listing them as each one showed up. It was to the point that the vet tech asked if I was a tech myself (or just in the medical field in general) because I identified every pill by proper name. No, darlin’, this just isn’t my first rodeo and I know which 4 pills went into her, obviously I’ll know which are coming out of her.
They ran blood work, did another x-ray, took urine samples and then brought her back to us. While waiting for results she started back with the diarrhea, I purposely left one (of 7?) instances on the floor for the doctor to see because he wasn’t in the room at the time. It had a lot more blood than he’d thought it would have at this stage of the evening, and now we’re looking at blood clots which is 100% abnormal. He decided it would be an overnight stay for her and ran down the list of treatments to be provided. After 3 hours in the office Sean and I were on our way home, no doggie.
I didn’t sleep last night, I was too busy in tears wondering why this was going on and could I have caused everything with the kick on Tuesday. About 5:30 in the morning I called the office, the vet noted that she’s resting but stable and had her insulin to help her sugars. He noted I would hear from someone either this morning or this afternoon after the next shift of doctors came in and did their rounds for the day.
I don’t know how but I was able to finally catch a few hours of sleep to be woken up by a vet tech around 2:30pm. She noted that Bella is doing much better and actually trying to eat something (which is great) but since it’s dog food and not her usual human-food based diet she’s turned her nose up a few times. She’d basically called me to say “come and get her”, I declined.
I was not rushing over there to pick her up (as badly as I wanted to) because I’m really unhappy with how quickly they wanted to send her home when the issues have yet to be addressed. Why was she crapping blood? Why was she throwing up every five minutes? Why did one doctor put her on Lasix and Enalapril only to have the next one take her off of them because he didn’t hear the same crackling noises in her chest that that the first one did? I wanted a THIRD opinion there. Why is she still hooked onto the IV to help rehydrate her if I can just walk out the door with her? Why are her liver enzymes through the roof? Is it Cushings? It sure looks like it. Why (minus sickness) was her Glucose so high considering she’d only had her insulin a few hours before I brought her in. Does that need to be adjusted? Why did you go out of her way to tell me she has a high fat content in her blood and then not say anything further about it?
I appreciate that they ran every possible test that they could on her and ruled out countless things, but the “cause” of these issues is still up in the air. OK, I get it – she’s a senior dog with Diabetes and CDE/Blindness – but there’s absolutely no reason for any of the problems noted above to be there as they are not connected to her Insulin or Eye Drops. There’s more damn questions than there are answers right now and they just wanted to boot her out the door. The tech went as far as saying “If you’d prefer us to deal with the little bit of diarrhea she still has, that’s fine.” I wanted to scream that she was literally crapping all over me while we were talking to the doctor and I didn’t even budge – but I didn’t. Poop and Vomit don’t bother me, never have and never will. Sean got a little light headed but he can’t even handle a pimple being popped in front of him. No aspect of bodily function bothers me, I can deal with it – so don’t even try to throw that one in my face. I’m not leaving her in your office to wipe her ass, I want to know why these issues are there to begin with damn it.
I 100% believe that, while a few areas of bloodwork were something that’s been ongoing, the introduction of 4 medications this week is exactly why we are where we are, but not a single person will admit to it verbally. I could tell on the vets face last night that he thought the Lasix/Enalapril was the wrong call but he said absolutely nothing because it questions a colleagues decision.
Fast foward to 5:30 this afternoon (Friday). I receive a second call from the same tech and she kind of mumbled to me in a “You were right…” kind of tone about my decision to leave Bella under observation for just a little bit longer. Bella did eat dog food, which is a choice I don’t agree with but it’s the vets office they aren’t going to be sharing their lunches with her. The only way to get her to eat was by hand feeding her and she wasn’t overly thrilled about what she was consuming. She then received her insulin. Around 4-4:30 the diarrhea restarted. She then went on to note that the IVs will continue to keep her hydrated and Enalapril will never be given to her again. Lasix is something we may need to reconsider in the future but Enalapril is the cause of everything that’s happened in the last 24 hours so there is no reason for her to be on it. The Vetmedin is the heart medication she will remain on, and it has the least amount of GI interference. She will not be getting a dose of that until tomorrow afternoon though. They want her system to fully flush the Enalapril as it is now over 48 hours later still upsetting her system. We all could easily confirm via the contents of her vomit and the xray that no pills were left in her stomach last night so her only dose of the Enalapril is there from Wednesday, maybe a micro-dose before vomiting last night but the full dose from Wednesday is what’s working through her right now.
After a half hour conversation with the tech I’m feeling more confident that two nights will do the trick for her. Another 12-24 hours on an IV to fully flush her system out is what is necessary for her to move forward right now. I’m fine with giving her ONE heart pill per day if it helps with her quality of life. She’s already getting her insulin twice daily, and having her eyes treated twice daily as well so that won’t change. By tomorrow we’ll see where we are and hopefully I get to take her home.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions, based on bloodwork I’m pretty much convinced of Cushings based on her liver enzymes but that could also be connected to the Enalapril and would need to be something we revisit in the future. I also want to know if since they’re monitoring her glucose for the next 24 hours if that counts as a glucose curve exam for insulin adjustment at home. We’ll see what they say tomorrow when I’m standing face-to-face with the doctors.
Now: I know there’s at least one asshole out there who says “Just put the dog down”. I can assure you that’s not going to happen for not only my own selfish reasons of not wanting to lose her, but knowing full well that she has plenty of fight left in her and has yet to give me “The Look” that all pet parents know too well. Someone telling me “Just put her down” when I know it’s not time is the equivalent of someone throwing Grandma into the garbage instead of a nursing home because their care is an inconvenience for them. To that kind of person – all I can and will ever say is fuck you and fuck off.
I should be receiving an update either later this evening or tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I have a house to tidy up because I thankfully have nothing to work on today. I need to clear my head and the best way to do that is to blast some music and vacuum up the house. Gives the little patient a nice obstacle free zone for her to walk around in when she gets home anyway.
While that can get a little annoying, it also worked to our benefit this year. All family members were well taken care of for Christmas, Sean and I did spend quite a bit of money on ourselves but it was on things that we both wanted (for a while) and desperately needed. We know the difference between Wants and Needs – unlike anyone under the age of 16 these days. We both were in desperate need of new desks. I had my Mac sitting on a Rubbermaid folding table and being as the 27-inch iMac (2011) weighs about 40 pounds, it was starting to sink down in the middle. To avoid it completely caving in, we went out and got me a new desk. It’s a super nice one, with plenty of storage and it’s even a little bigger than the previous folding table so I actually got the chance to organize things where I can still completely function without any issues at all. Obviously after Sean spent 7 hours putting this thing together (one warped piece was throwing EVERYTHING off) he gladly took a little nap. I decorated the drawers with dollar store shelf liner so that they can list a super long time without getting destroyed. There’s more than enough room for the work phone so my boss can stay on my butt too heh. I had it across the room next to the TV because we didn’t have a long enough Ethernet chord, but that was taken care of with the addition of a ZyXEL wireless switch that now sits behind my monitor. It supposedly boosts the Wifi in the house, but turns the Wifi into an actual plugged in connection as well, so I’ve got the phone plugged into it and if I needed to I could plug a printer in to it. It was actually strong enough of a feed to handle Sean’s XBOX 360 for a few weeks as well, so obviously it works how it’s supposed to.
Sean, after my desk was put together, began increasingly becoming annoyed with his desk. After drilling into him that he spends way too much time at his desk and needs a new one…. we headed back to Staples a little over a week later (this past weekend actually) to pick up a new desk for him. The one he’s been using for years was a typical students desk with the metal legs, the pull-out keyboard and the thin table top. One you’d see in college students dorm, basically. So it was creaking like all holy hell and we wound up replacing that one as well. He found a nice wide desk that he was in love with, but it unfortunately was not going to fit in the room so he went with one that was closer to size (in comparison to mine). He’s in love with it as well. It’s very nice dark wood with a nice sturdy base, some drawers – finito.
Either way, we both were playing with the Tablet for a little while and found out when browsing through the Settings to get all of the stats that it was now possible (with Android – Ice Cream) to have multiple users. This sparked our interest almost instantly, and we both looked at eachother and I was like “I want”, he said “Go get it” (cause he’s fricken awesome) and while I was pulling the car around (cause he was picking up his desk the same day) he paid for both. Turned into an expensive shopping trip on our parts, but we walked out of there with a want, and a need. 
While he was in the Bedroom for a few hours setting up his new desk, I was prepping the house for Christmas. I did more baking in the past few days than I ever thought possible. Everything from cookies, to breads, to brownies – you name it, I probably baked it. I went all out for Christmas this year, because I actually had more room to do it. I know that sounds a little weird but it’s true. A huge living room and a big footprint in reference to the front end of the house, things just kind of happened. The baking was really just phase two, we’d spent quite some time decorating prior to my even pulling the flour out of the cabinet. So the tree was decorated, the bulk of the outdoors was draped in white lights and the rest of the house had random little touches here and there. Thankfully, minus today, there was really no wet weather going on outside so my garland didn’t get all mucky and was nice and clean for Christmas. I was also really happy with the tree in the living room. With the combination of Karen’s ornaments and mine everything kind of came together that worked out really nicely.
I also got him some new Happy Feet, this is a brand that we were in love with long before Snooki put it on MTV. I’ve always had a pair, and so has he and his were worn to the point that his toes were going to start popping through the bottom. Knowing how comfy they are I changed it up a little bit and got him the “All Around” ones, they look like real sneakers and there’s about an inch-thick rubber sole on the bottom of them. They’re better than my usual outdoor slippers so of course I’ll have to pick up a pair for myself in the future but for now this was all about him and that’s what he got. So that was one pair, and instead of getting him the standard color variations I decided to take a look under the “Animals” section and got him the most ridiculous ones I could find – and his favorite animal – the Penguins. Watching him walk around in these is more amusing than the slippers themselves, but they bring a smile to just about everyone’s face so it was more than worth it.
The thing I was surprised about, however, was the ViewSonic 24-inch Monitor that was under the tree. I’ve been using a 17-inch monitor as my “Email Screen” for the past couple of months and it was working out pretty well for me. I kept my email completely on that window and when I was actually in Photoshop or Dreamweaver I would just load project free TV and watch television right on the desk, no complaints at all. So you can imagine my surprise when Sean upgraded me to a much larger screen. This was one of those items that wasn’t on my wants, or my needs – which then turns into a complete and total surprise. And that wraps up Christmas Eve.