pupdate

Bits and pieces

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

A.K.A. catching up on a bunch of stuff.

First of all, happy Valentine’s Day, to all of you lovely people out there!

Work

They say you’re not learning unless you’re failing. I must be learning BIG TIME at work these days.

That’s all I’m going to day about that.

Spirit

On February 1st, St. Brigid’s Day, or Imbolc, I attended Wooing the Soul, a day-long workshop and storytelling session intended to help women connect with their inner goddess. I enjoyed the storytelling, which was based on The Wooing of Etain. We danced, we sang, we invoked the spirit of Brigid, saint and goddess, and we shared food and experience.

I reconnected with a few friends whose circles I’ve moved away from in the past years.

While it was a good day, I found it was a bit long. I kept finding myself thinking, I could be writing, which is, incidentally, how I connect with my inner goddess. It’s a problem I have. Instead of talking about something, or listening to others talk about it, I’d rather be doing it 😛

I won’t write more about the day because others have done a better job than I could, namely, my friend Kim Fahner on her Republic of Poetry blog, and the facilitator herself, Ann Kathleen McLaughlin, on her blog, SophiAwakens.

Training of a different sort

On February 3rd, I delivered a workshop on getting published for the Northern Initiative for Social Action (NISA) as part of their Arts Intensive art education week.

I haven’t delivered a creative workshop in some time and I was looking forward to it. I’d love the opportunity to do more of these in the future. *hint, hint, universe*

I was far more nervous than I usually am before a training gig, which is to say I was a bit of a wreck, but the class was an intimate group.

The workshop was only two hours, and I had trouble keeping things on track, because the training I deliver for work is rarely less than a day. It wasn’t too bad, however, as the class was largely not at the querying stage yet, so the fact that I wasn’t able to discuss that aspect of getting published at length wasn’t a huge issue.

I also shared my notes and PowerPoint after the class, so everyone received all the bits I wasn’t able to discuss at length in the class.

I’m quite happy with how things turned out.

There are always lessons learned attached to any learning event, though, and I’ve got those tucked away for next time 🙂

The writing life

In writing news, I received my second rejection of a short story this year. I try to take the view that I am one more rejection closer to ‘yes,’ but honestly, things that been going so poorly in general of late that it’s been a little difficult to maintain a positive outlook.

Still, I continue to forge ahead with writing, revising, and submitting. It’s what we writers do.

Pupdate

Nuala had another glucose curve back in January and the result is that we increased her insulin by four units a day and tried reducing her prednisone.

The former is working well (we think) but we had to resume her previous dosage of pred as her ears were beginning to close up again.

Otherwise, our pup-child is doing well and we’ll return to the vet in March for another glucose curve and general checkup.

A clarification on the dream thing

I just wanted to be clear that I have ‘normal’ dreams, too.

The other night, for example, I dreamed that my sister-in-law invited herself over to our house for a sleepover, which was to take place, at her request, in the storage area of our unfinished basement, which barely has room for us to stand or move around in, let alone three adults and camping gear—oh, didn’t I mention, the sleepover was actually a camp-out, in the middle of one of the coldest winters we’ve had recently, in an uninsulated basement with a drafty window . . .

I’ve also had work-related dreams in which the office has moved into a shopping mall and I’m there, after hours, with Phil, moving my own office furniture. I’m wearing a power suit, have short, dark hair, and I’m skinny in that way only women who spend several hours a day working out are skinny. But I’m still me. No one else is there.

Or, I’ve dreamed that my boss gets a promotion, and she invites me along for the ride, literally, as she’s boarding a Lear jet and I’ve been summoned to the runway on the assumption that, of course, I’ll want to drop everything and go.

Inside the jet, she lounges like Cleopatra, a platoon of virile, young military men seeing to her every desire. I wish her well and get the heck out of Dodge, happy to have escaped the ‘trap.’ Oh yes. Hellish trap, that would be . . .

I’ve had stress dreams, falling dreams, chase dreams, abandonment dreams, and nightmares I’m not going to repeat, because, while they are all perfectly clear in my memory, I don’t want to feed those particular beasts.

It’s just those rare few per year that are well developed stories in their own rights that have little, if anything, to do with my waking life.

Just so you know. I’m mostly normal. Mostly (she says in a voice like Newt’s in Aliens).

So that’s it for this week. My mom’s coming over for supper in a bit, and then I’m going to throw my hat in the ring of another writing contest.

Break a pencil in all of your creative endeavours this week!

Muse-inks

Caturday quickie, part the second: Pupdate

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

The last time I offered a pupdate, Nuala had been diagnosed with diabetes, we had a VetPen, but were having difficulty regulating her blood sugar. We’d also stopped the prednisone and started an alternate treatment, cyclosporin.

Well, after three glucose curves, her blood sugar is still not regulated, but the vet feels that clinically, she’s doing fine. The stress of a day-long stay at the vet’s may have an impact on her glucose readings, however. So we’re continuing her treatment of 16 units of insulin twice a day.

We ended up returning the VetPen as the maximum dose on it is 16 units and we may have to increase her dosage again, depending on how her symptoms are managed. Phil and I are much more comfortable with syringes anyway, having had previous experience with our cat, Thufir (the caturday quickie mascot).

The cyclosporin was not working and her ears (which the pred and the cyclosporin were prescribed to treat) were once again full of cysts. She had an abscess in one ear, as evidenced by the amount of pus that came out of it, and so the vet has recommended a return to the pred. We have to monitor her water intake and urination and may have to adjust her insulin accordingly . . . because . . .

Nu is once more a piddle pup, incontinence being one of several side effects of the pred. We now have washable incontinence pads made for humans on the bed and the couch, and are otherwise tolerating the occasional dribble. She can’t help it, poor dear.

Other than that, she’s on Fortekor for her proteinurea.

That’s our complex pup in a nutshell.

After only a few days on the pred, her ear cysts are shrinking again, and she seems quite happy.

Nuala December 2014

This is seriously the best picture I could get of her. She’s absurdly camera shy (!)

Our aim is quality of life. She’s nine and a half, even though we still refer to her as the pup.

I hope this will be the last pupdate for a while.

Caturday Quickies

Caturday quickie: Things and stuff are happening

/ Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

So.

On Monday, Union Gas retrenched the gas line, as promised. Plus, we got a lovely new meter out of it. We’d just had our meter upgraded last year, but this one’s even nicer 😉

Tuesday passed without much activity, but a huge chunk of a cliff fell onto Regent Street the week previous and we figured the crew was occupied elsewhere. A jumbo (rock drill) appeared in the driveway, however.

Wednesday, the foreman dropped by to talk to my mom (she lives right beside us). He was going to talk to Phil and me after work.

By the time we got home, the front steps had been relocated beside the house, and our rosebushes and honeysuckle torn out.

TheyHadToMoveTheStairs

My steps are beside themselves 😛

The foreman came by, as promised, and advised that they would be drilling holes in the rock to prepare for blasting on Friday. We took him down to see the piece of the rock that was in our basement, and he advised us to take down anything fragile or valuable. While his aim was not to damage anything, they would be blasting.

They were drilling tonnes of holes and packing smaller amounts of explosive into each to break up the rock, but not carry the damage to the foundation.

DrillingTheHoles

Thursday was Nuala’s next glucose curve. We dropped her off and discovered that while she looks to be in much better physical shape, she’d actually lost a half kilogram from last week. We think she’s rebuilding muscle.

When we went back to pick Nuala up at 6:30, we learned that she’d been a clinic dog for the day. After two hours in the kennel, she wouldn’t stop pawing at the bars. The vet, remembering her Houdini of last week, said, “She’s not staying in there. Might as well let her out.”

Nu spent most of the day in the vet’s office, or wandering the back room.

Her sugars were still too high, so we were advised to up her insulin dose by another unit and come back in three weeks for another curve.

We’re using the VetPen now and it’s supposed to be better with respect to ensuring a consistent dosage of insulin, but we still feel more confident in our ability to draw a proper syringe. Maybe it will just take a little getting used to.

NusLookingBetter

The drilling was done on Thursday evening.

On Friday, I was home sick, but the blasting started, as scheduled.

The City Engineer came by and I signed off on the plans. He explained that there might be further delays as the person completing their retaining walls was behind by a few weeks. The plans for a full height retaining wall with railing are still going forward, however.

They’re even selecting a railing colour to harmonize with our house, either in a sand, or dark brown.

Our driveway will be fully repaved, with proper substrate, and the two water shut-off pipes will be repaired.

The foreman came by before every blast and asked if I wouldn’t be more comfortable outside the house. I assured him I would be fine. And I was, but the actual shockwave from the blast was something else. I felt the whole house do the wave 🙂

SatMorning3

So this is how things look now. As you can see, the rock is all nicely broken up and they left the blast mats in place to keep things more or less tidy until they come back to clear things out on Tuesday.

SatMorning2

And that’s where we are.

Phil and I are going to enjoy our Thanksgiving long weekend.

Tonight is Doctor Who night 🙂

Caturday Quickies

Pupdate, part the whatever

/ Melanie Marttila / 8 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these. Phil and I had, foolishly, fell into complacency, having felt that the worst of Nuala’s troubles were behind us.

Not so, apparently.

When we had seen the veterinarian in June, following up on Nuala’s persistently inflamed and fibrocystic ear canals, we had been sent home with Nu on a regimen on low dose prednisone and periodic flushing of the problematic canals with TryzEDTA. She would be due for further blood tests in September to follow up on her kidney function and liver function to see how she was tolerating the pred.

September hit and Nuala started to behave poorly again. Her ears started to throw off more crud/pus, and we thought we’d up her pred for a bit to see if we could clear it up. She became listless and her bladder control was practically non-existent. She also started to drink a lot of water. A lot. It was so bad that I’d have to restrain her from drinking from puddles when we walked. We had to remember to keep the toilet lid down.

We noticed she was losing weight, too. We theorized, because we both knew the symptoms, that she might be diabetic, but I preferred to remain in denial for a while and hoped that her difficulties resulted from an existing condition that we could treat.

I thought initially that we could wait until the vet called for her follow up blood work, but week before last, we decided we couldn’t wait any longer and made an appointment for this Tuesday just past.

We brought in a urine sample as well, just in case. Turns out it was good that we did.

The first thing we did upon entering the office was to weigh her. It’s something we do every time. If there is any medication to be doled out or adjusted, the vet needs to know her weight.

She was 25 kilograms. The last time we’d weighed her in June, she was 31.4 kilograms. That was a shock.

In the examination room, though he confirmed the increased inflammation/infection in her ears and her poor physical condition, the vet said that we were to return to the lower dosage of pred with an eye to eliminating it altogether. Pred can apparently exacerbate the onset of diabetes. Joy.

He said that his immediate diagnosis would be diabetes, but that he’d actually like to perform the tests to confirm his diagnosis before prescribing anything.

Wednesday, Phil received the call at work: Nu was indeed diabetic, and there were ketones in her urine.

Now, for those of you who don’t know, this is bad. It means that Nu had depleted her fat stores and that her body was now consuming her muscle mass in an attempt to compensate for her inability to metabolize sugar properly.

I noticed that she had been a bit unsteady on her pegs in the last couple of days.

So, we both took off work early on Thursday to get back to see the vet before he left for the day. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to get the insulin pen and supplies he wanted for Nu, but he had some canine insulin and syringes that had been returned by another client. She’d need 12 units of insulin, morning and night.

We were also given new food, a diabetic diet, and advised to feed Nu between three and four cans of it a day (she was doing well on a half a can and a cup of kibble a day before) to bring her weight back up.

And finally, I’ll be taking her back in this coming Tuesday for a glucose curve to see how she’s doing and if we have to adjust the dosage or the food in the next little bit.

In the three days she’s been on the insulin, I’m happy to say that Nuala is already looking better, drinking less, peeing in the house less, and enjoying her usual activities (like eating garbage on our morning walks) again.

The hope is that getting the diabetes under control will also reduce the stress on Nu’s body and reduce the inflammation in her ears, if nothing else. Otherwise, it’s a game of wait and see. We’ll address her health issues as required, moving forward.

This is not new territory for Phil and me. Our cat, Thufir, was diabetic for the last three years of his life. Plus, Phil was a medical laboratory technician in a past career, so he’s cool with the whole injection thing.

The unfortunate part for me is that Nu needs her insulin an hour before her meals, morning and night. So . . . there will be no more sleeping in for Mellie on the weekends. I’ll either have to take up napping (something I’ve never been good at) or try to find some other way to recover from my weekly sleep deficit from working.

Something tells me I shouldn’t have decided to defer my leave with income averaging until the spring.

The important thing is that Nuala is on the road to recovery again.

I hope I won’t be writing another pupdate for some time. My poor dear has been through quite enough.

Next week: I’ll be posting my Next Chapter monthly update. There are still a few days left in the month and I want to make the most of them 🙂

So, this dog walks into a writer’s office and says, “Whatchya up to?”

Caturday Quickies: Pupdate

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

A true quickie for you here: Nuala’s doing well.

Her vet appointment on April 29th wasn’t a glowing review, but everyone who’s seen Nu in the last week has commented on how much better she seems.

Her meds were adjusted, no more oral antibiotics, renewed ear washing, and we have another appointment on May 13, 2014.

Will tell you more when there’s more to tell.

My Sweetpea

See the new light in my eyes? (lasers on–full stun)

Caturday Quickies

Sundog snippet: Pupdate

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

I promised a pupdate and here it is:

The bad news

When we went to see the vet last week on Tuesday, it was supposed to be for an ear flush.

This did not happen.

It turns out that Nuala’s ears are too far gone. Due to her allergies, the tissue in her ear has developed inflammatory polyps. This is not restricted to the external ear tissue, but extends right down the ear canal. What’s worse, her polyps were calcifying.

As a result, the vet could not flush her ears and when we saw him in the evening, he indicated that we should stop the topical antibiotic. The ear was so closed, there was no point. None of the medication could get to the source of the infection.

Though Nuala received her annual vaccinations, there really wasn’t much they could do that day.

The blood work we’d had done from our last visit was returned and showed that Nuala’s kidney and liver enzymes were still within normal ranges. Her liver enzymes had actually improved.

The recommended treatment, as the article linked above indicates, is ablation. This is a surgical procedure in which all the polyps are resected, and, because of the number of growths in the ear canal, removal of the canal altogether.

Unfortunately, there is no one in town that does these procedures on a regular basis. Once again, we’d have to travel a minimum of four hours away to get the surgery.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, this is not an option for Phil and me. We can’t just take vacation when we want and taking unpaid leave would be a hardship. Nu does not travel well, and would have to be sedated there and back. Plus, she’s officially a senior now, and the complications of surgery are increased.

Two other options were presented, cyclosporine and prednisone. The first was shown to be effective in a very small sample of canine patients. The second is effective, but would have an effect on her liver and kidneys. It would also cause an increase in her appetite and thirst, but Phil and I figured we’d be okay with this since Nu had lost so much weight recently.

Fortunately, prednisone would likely be a short term, or at worst, periodic treatment. That’s what we opted for and went home with a new, more powerful, oral antibiotic and enough prednisone for two weeks, at which time we have another follow up booked.

Oh, the vet said on the way out, you know she’s deaf now, right?

The good news

By the time we were on the second day of treatment, we noticed a marked improvement in Nuala. She was once again, behaving like her normal, healthy self and eating again.

Even my mom noticed a night and day difference in her behaviour.

Pus started running out of her right ear again, the one that was, by far, the worst. We’re just using the EDTA ear wash to keep her ears clean. We also noticed that she was not deaf, or at least not completely.

We reported this to the vet and he is sceptical, but when a sleeping dog in another room is summoned by the sound of the opened fridge door, she can hear.

Since then, her ears have continued to improve. The pus has stopped running, but we now figure that it’s the new antibiotic that’s provided relief. She’s no longer shaking her head or losing her balance. Her ears are perky again, with only the tips of them, where her aural haematomas are, folded over and malformed.

We have hope that by the time the two-week check up is due, her situation will improve enough for a flush (if that’s still indicated).

So, we’re happy with our decision and hopeful for the future health of our furbaby.

Nuala is notoriously camera-shy. When she sees me coming with the phone or camera, she turns in the other direction, which is why I generally only get pictures of her when she’s sleeping or has her back turned. I was able to manage this picture with the help of a biscuit.

Nuala

What’s that you got there, Mom?

Happy Nuala

Good biscuit! Can I have another?

Sundog snippet

 

Sweet mercy, it’s another pupdate

/ Melanie Marttila / 8 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this topic, so I think a brief revue may be in order.

This has not been a good year and a bit for my poor Nuala.

In January 2013, she ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and had surgery to repair it. Recovering from that, Nu got a urinary tract infection (UTI). She received antibiotics, but a follow up revealed that the problem was not limited to a UTI.

To address what now appeared to be kidney issues, we changed her food to a kidney diet, and started another medication.

She had been on a hypoallergenic diet due to food allergies. Of course, the kidney issues took precedence, but that meant an increase in overall itchiness.

She gave herself an aural haematoma.

Things seemed to get better for a while and Nu behaved as she had when she was several years younger.

Then, in the fall, she got some strange infection in her eye and nose. We went through a couple of rounds of treatment for that, and then Nu injured her other ear with another aural haematoma. Now she has cauliflower ears.

Again, after she recovered from her eye/nose infection, Nu seemed to be happy and well.

In January this year, her kidney function and enzymes were checked and it was determined that she should remain on the kidney food and medication.

I asked for some Mometamax, because I noticed her ears smelled funky. Usually, that’s the first sign of infection. Likely linked to her allergy issues, Nu has problematic ears.

I completed her course of treatment, but as soon as the drops stopped, her symptoms returned. I tried to keep up with the infection by keeping her ears cleaned.

Then came heck month (A.K.A. March), and I was away so much, I couldn’t keep up with the cleaning.

By the end of March, she was clearly in distress. She was shaking her head and her ears were swollen and they smelled purulent.

The first appointment resulted in more Mometamax and an EDTA ear wash to be administered daily.

A week passed and while pus was draining out of her ear (and apparently down her throat), she was definitely not feeling better. It looked like she’d developed pustules in her right ear. She refused some of her favourite foods (another support for the theory that the infection was draining down her throat – how could she enjoy anything when it all tasted like pus?). She was also hacking a lot in the attempt to clear her throat. She started losing her balance.

A second appointment adjusted the topical antibiotic and added an oral antibiotic as well. On the chance that the ear drum had been pierced or ruptured altogether, the Mometamax had to be discontinued.

A third appointment was scheduled and while there are days when she seems to feel better, Nu was not showing signs of marked improvement.

At the vet’s I had Phil weigh her, and Nu had lost 2 KG (approximately 4.5 pounds). We had started feeding her a full can of food (she usually only had a half-can) because that was the only food she’d eat. Her kibble was what she wasn’t eating, and she got a cup morning and evening.

We got an extension on the oral antibiotics to see us through until next Tuesday, when Nu’s been booked in for a full-day stay, light sedation, aural irrigation, her vaccinations (they’re due), and then we’ll see how she is when we pick her up. They might see if they can express and test the fluid from some of the pustules in her ear as well … ick.

Phil and I suspect the eye/nose infection in the fall, that some of the infection may have taken root in her sinuses and stayed dormant for a while. A sub clinical (no physical symptoms) thing.

Nu Sleeping

Nu sleeping in my office (foot of my desk) and healing, I hope.

Since Thursday’s appointment, Nu has been sleeping most of the time. She’s still shaking her head, and now she’s also started whining a bit when she eats biscuits and other harder foods. Unfortunately these are also some of her favourites (carrots).

Phil and I are distressed to see our little dear so sick.

I’ll let you all know how she’s doing in a future post.

My dog has cauliflower ears

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

And other dogaliciousness 🙂

Yes, this is a pupdate.

Nuala’s doing well these days, but has persistent issues with her allergies/ears that have resulted in a second aural haematoma … in her other ear.

Let’s back-pedal to several years ago.

Nu was going bald in places. There were several hairless patches on her chest. She would also fuss incessantly with her ears and her paws. The vet diagnosed food allergies and after a summer of Phil and me making Nu’s food, we switched to Science Diet z/d, which is a hypoallergenic formula food.

The fur grew back and though not completely alleviated, Nu’s snarf sessions with her feet weren’t keeping up us at night.

When she was diagnosed with kidney issues earlier this year, we switched to k/d, the kidney formula diet. Since then, Nuala’s been scratching at her ears more and back to chewing at her feet long enough that wherever she sits or lies to perform this operation gets soaked with saliva.

I know. Ew.

Not long after the food switch, Nu gave herself the first haematoma in her right ear. That healed up after a month or so, but now her ear is twisted and bent.  At the time, the vet said he couldn’t find anything wrong with her ears per se, just a persistent inflammation.  So he prescribed some drops. He gave us the economy size so that if her ears flared up again, we could treat it.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Nu gave herself a second haematoma in the left ear and we were out of drops. When we went in to get her latest batch of food, we asked for some more ear drops. These were given without too much of an argument.

So now my pup will have two bent and twisted ears, akin to the condition called cauliflower ears sometimes seen in humans. It’s kind of sad because she did have lovely, perky ears (see header). I’m sure it will have some affect on her future hearing and possibly the frequency of inflammation. Dogs ears are the way they are for a reason.

Nu in profile

Nu in profile

I wrote a poem about my snow-loving Nu and posted it to Facebook. People seemed to like it, so here it is for all of you:

A dog’s ode to winter (on the occasion of the first persistent snow of 2013)

Winter, I want to roll in you
—on my back,
paws in air,
body a-waggle—
I want to get your scent
all over me.

I want to bury my nose
in your fluffy layers,
find the dainties hidden there
—this is where the garbage goes,
racoon and raven
tear it open,
leave these treats for
meeeeeee!

I want to lay down,
fold my front legs back, and
push my head into your depths using
my back paws;
slide down a hill on my belly;
shatter thrown balls of snow;
follow the scent of mouse burrowing;
bark at the strange, frozen
tower that appears in the
front yard.

Winter, you are love to a
black dog to whom the
summer sun means suffering, but
not after a thaw.
Then, all is ice, hard, and
crystalline, packed snow into which
no nose may thrust.

Let us not think of thaws and
hardness; for now, you are soft,
white, and mine!

Floppy ears, wagging tail, the new kung fu puppy movie :)

Floppy ears, wagging tail, the new kung fu puppy movie 🙂

Sundog snippets: Pupdate October 2013

/ Melanie Marttila / 5 Comments

Sundog snippet

Yes, my friends, Nu’s health adventures do not yet seem to be at an end.

Poor pup has now contracted some kind of infection in her eye/nose.  She started sneezing a few weeks ago, and then, after a couple of days, she started shedding these honkin’ boogers from her eyes.

And yes, we figure they were, in fact, boogers because of what happened next.

In any case, we went to the vet and got some eye drops, because at this point everything seemed to be limited to her right eye.

After a couple of days of the treatment, however, I noticed that Nu’s nose was crusty (eeeewww).

A second visit resulted in antibiotics and after the full course, she’s still got a crusty nose and opti-gook.  No infection, though, which I guess is the good thing.

If the inflammation/whatever-it-is didn’t clear up, the other option that was presented to us was a foreign body.  In all likelihood, Nu snorted something up her nose hole and that is what has caused the sneezing, opti-gook, and crustiness.

She’s otherwise happy and healthy, and we hope to continue in that vein, but every once in a while, I have to wipe my dog’s nose.

Nuala in her hidey place

Nuala in her hidey place

Sundog snippets: Pupdate, July 2013

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

So here’s a quick pupdate for you.

First, the story so far:

In January, Nuala had an ACL repair. On the heels of that, she contracted a UTI. We administered antibiotics. She somehow scratched herself an aural haematoma. Rather than having it drained, the vet recommended letting her body metabolize the blood. We agreed.

The follow up urine sample, however showed extra protein, which is usually a sign of a problem with the kidneys. Blood tests showed that Nu’s kidney enzymes were in perfect balance. An x-ray revealed no stones in either kidney or bladder, but an enlarged liver and spleen.

The vet recommended an ultrasound. This would require a journey of several hours for which Nuala would have to be sedated (she doesn’t travel well) and several days off work for Phil and me. The ultrasound may or may not have found anything and may or may not have resulted in a laparoscopic biopsy, which may or may not have proven clinically definitive. We declined.

We changed her food to a kindey health diet, and started her on a regimen of ACE inhibitors. Nuala subsequently redeveloped a UTI and this time we have the urine sample cultured. It turned out to be a massive e-coli infection. Uber-doses of antibiotics later, she was once again clear of infection, but the high protein in her urine remains a concern.

Where we are now

The vet is again encouraging us to consider the ultrasound. We’ve discussed things at length and here are the ultimate reasons Phil and I are not going to follow through with it:

  1. Nuala is behaving well, she’s feeling better than she has in a long time. Her residual limp from the ACL surgery is almost unnoticeable. By all accounts, she’s happy.
  2. What will the ultrasound reveal? The existence (or the lack of existence) of a growth of some sort.
  3. If the growth is benign, will it be removed? No (unless its negative impact on Nu’s health is severe).
  4. If the growth is malignant, what can we do? Not much. Cancer in dogs is notoriously fast-growing and often has metastasized before an operation can remove it. Though they do have canine chemo and radiation, the course of treatment would again involve travel and its effectiveness is not as good as human therapies.

While it may result in a better diagnosis and possible prognosis, we may not be able to act on it quickly enough to make a difference.

So we’ve decided to stay the course with her current medication and see how things go.  If Nuala’s health worsens, we may have to revisit and reconsider our decisions, but I honestly don’t think this will happen.

Our last dog, Zoe, had cancer, and we did what we could, but the cancer was aggressive and ultimately fatal. The operation to remove the cancer wasn’t effective, was very hard on her, and it may have bought her two weeks, but they weren’t a good two weeks. Her death broke our hearts and it was two years before we thought about adopting another dog.

Whatcha got there?

Nuala hoping to scam noms from Phil 🙂

You may disagree with our decision, but I hope you can respect it.

Here ends what I hope to be the last pupdate for some time. Nuala really is doing well and until we can see a reason to, we’re not going to put her through further procedures.  She’s been through enough this year already.

 

Sundog snippet