Things Look Better In The Morning

I didn't mean to sound mysterious yesterday. I was feeling overwhelmed and needed time to sort out my thoughts before blogging. Today I'm trying to put everything into proper perspective, so here's what's happening.

Let's start with Miss Lola. She discovered how to get around the soft headress to lick her sore toes. I had to switch her to the hard plastic type that creates problems for the rest of us when she rams it into us.

 It has done it's job and is protecting the toe. The swelling seems to be down a bit today, though the toe is still two or three times it's normal size.

Lola isn't about to sit on the sidelines and watch the others play. She's a determined girl and joins right in the game.

She's being very good about the new routine of soaking her foot and having medicine applied. All my dogs take pills nicely, so that isn't a problem either. We're hoping to see more improvement over the weekend. If not, we'll be visiting Dr B on Monday.

On Monday afternoon Samba and Morgan had their six month checkups. For the most part Samba's was good. Her weight is perfect, her foot has healed and she has good use of her jaw. We discussed cutting back on her prednisone slightly and will start that in a month or so. Dr B drew blood and sent it off to the lab and he did a urinalysis. Even though she drinks cranberry juice every morning, the ph level of her urine was still a little high so he sent a sample to the lab.

Yesterday morning I got the lab results back. Her bloodwork was good. She had some highs and lows, but they could all be explained by her prolonged steroid use. The lab said that the urine sample was contaminated so Dr B needed to draw urine directly from her bladder. The best way to get a first morning sample was for Samba to spend the night at the hospital so the sample could be drawn this morning before she hit the grass.

Samba and I have only ever spent two nights apart. The first was when she was a tiny pup and Rob was here with her. The second time was when we met Fudge's plane in Kansas City. Our neighbor took care of her then. As much as I complain about her waking me each night to go star gazing, I was as unhappy as she was about last night's sleeping arrangements. She greeted me with a big hug and sloppy kiss this morning after the procedure and is now sleeping on  my feet.

Then there is Morgan.

Morgan is 12 1/2 years old now and is slowing down. Her checkup was mostly good. She has several cysts on her back and her head and she has a fatty tumor on her side. None of these present any real problem. Her knee has healed well and she has only a slight limp. Her eyes are a problem. A few years ago the color faded in Morgan's iris in both eyes. They look strange now, sort of a clear gray. Her eyesight wasn't as good as when she was younger, but whose is? This time, however, the doctor saw almost no pupil response. We know she can still see, at least a little, but we don't know if that will last. I know that dogs adjust well to gradual blindness and Samba, Fudge, Rob and I will all stay close and help her get around, but it makes me very sad.

Then the other shoe dropped. Her blood work looked great with one huge exception. Two of her liver enzymes had syrocketed. The doubled from just six months ago. To understand this you need a little background. When Morgan was three years old, she had a reaction to an antibiotic and suffered liver failure. She was in the hospital for two weeks on IV fluids and we didn't know if she'd survive. Obviously she did, but not without damage.

We've known since then that Morgan had liver disease, but over the past four years she's gone into a sort of remission. The enzyme levels came down to almost normal and she showed no signs of the disease. The doctor felt she could live another three years and we were thrilled.

Yesterday it was obvious that the disease is active again and now the doctor is talking about keeping her happy and comfortable for another year. We're going to start her on a medicine to try to slow the advance of the disease, but I still felt as if I'd been kicked in the gut. To lose Morgan so soon after Tsar is just not something I can even think about right now.