Progress Report

It's been a long 24 hours. Last evening I took Mac outside and when I came in Morgan was standing at the door. It was the first time she'd managed to stand by herself. I carried her down the steps, she wandered around a little, then I carried her back in. She settled down in the living room, but soon got up and walked to the water bowl. Then she slept till bedtime when I again carried her out and back in. She slept quietly all night.

This morning she needed a little help getting up, but walked to the door and managed the steps by herself. She had a drink and seemed a little interested in breakfast. I offered her some beef and rice mixed with some of Noah's special diet. She only ate about two spoons full, then went to sleep.

A couple times during the day she's wanted to go out to pee and has managed the steps by herself. At one point I offered her half a cookie and after a little hesitation, she ate it.

Finally it was time to head for the vet's office. The moment of truth had come, had the fever gone down? She seemed very tired but managed to walk into the office by herself to applause from the techs. Her temp was 104. OK we had dropped a degree, not what I had hoped for, but acceptable. After some discussion we agreed that it was probably better than that. Her arthritis meds she had yesterday probably knocked it down a little yesterday and after 24 hours the antibiotics were probably wearing off a bit and the fever was starting to rise again.

We decided to continue the antibiotics for six more days, then reassess her condition. She's to be encouraged to eat anything she wants at this point, until she's feeling better.  When we got home she had about half a cup of food and half a cookie. I'll be taking her temp each day around 3PM and we're hoping to see a steady decline.

I didn't get much sleep last night. I woke every hour to check on Morgan and today I'm feeling very emotional, on the edge of tears all day. We had planned to go out for a bite, but I don't want to leave her yet, so I may just go have a good cry and get it out of my system.

Meanwhile, here's Noah's incision and a shot of him in his spiffy shirt.