Dogs’ Blog

I just checked the blog today to see that I hadn’t updated since K’s big eye incident.

We’ve seen the ophthalmologist about a dozen times. K has uveitis, which is not glaucoma (that’s good). However, she’s now taking 3 different types of eye drops twice a day to keep the eye pressure under control. We’ll have to do that forever but that’s ok since it’s working.

The seizures have settled into a roughly once-a-month pattern. It’s been over 5 weeks since the last one. We did an MRI, blood work, and had several visits with the neurologist. For now, we’re just dealing with them without medication. If they get more frequent, we’ll reassess.

However, post-seizure she is lost. She doesn’t know who anyone is and she has a scared and aggressive reaction. To prevent any issues if she were to have a seizure while I’m away, K now has her room (the sunroom) gated off from the rest of the house. She stays there when I’m away. It’s pretty luxurious dog diggs - her own couch, windows on 3 sides, food and water, lots of room to stretch out, and a gate where she can see and smell pi (who often lays on the other side of the gate). Still, she’s never to happy about going in there.

Pi is doing great. We’re soon having our annual vet visit so we will find out of there are any hidden issues for either of them then.

We here at Dogs and Jen are single handedly supporting the veterinary industry these days.

In January, we founda big lump on Pi’s foot. We thought it was a tumor and Dr. Bob scheduled her for a biopsy. While they were doing it, they found out it was actually a bad infection, as it quickly drained once they punched into it. She did well after a course of antibiotics, but it didn’t take care of the infection entirely. Now, we’re on a new course of antibiotics as well as a somewhat experimental laser treatment. We are doing 16 laser treatment sessions, 3 times a week, which makes for many trips up to the vet. So far, the combination seems to be working pretty well.

Then, this morning, K woke me up at 5:45. She was acting very strange, one of her eyes was shut, she wouldn’t lay down. I thought she was going to have another seizure, so we brought her up to the emergency vet. It turns out that she has glaucoma in that eye. They treated it initially and I have her on some codeine now. We’re going back tomorrow to check on things and then seeing an ophthalmologist as well as our usual vet on Monday.

As you can see, she does not look very good.There are lots of potentially bad things that can come from and lead to this glaucoma. After Monday we should have a better idea of her prognosis.
So between the pair of them, Pi and K are creating a lot of driving for me this week. I hope that all this treatment will get them both back to normal soon.

Yellow Dog vs. Yellow Butterfly

K had her staples removed on Wednesday. You can see that she’s doing much better:

We found out that both Pi and K have lost about 6 pounds since December. This is great news! They weren’t fat, but I’ve been trying to get their weight down a bit. All the fetch in the back yard is obviously paying off.

K plays, but Pi is really obsessed.

K also had some fun with the sprinkler today.

And the sprinkler had some fun with her back.

Here’s how I balance my work and my non-work life. Work: balanced on right leg. Life (i.e. K’s head): balanced on left leg (and occasionally on the caps lock key). Note that while this is cute, it makes progress on editing that journal article slow.

Other than an accidental tummy-poke from me this morning that elicited a terrifying yelp from K, she is doing very well. She’s happy, back up to her 90% activity level, and irritated that she can’t run around in the yard. Only 8 days left until the staples come out.

I finally managed to snap a picture of K’s belly. She is feeling more like her usual self - her energy is coming back up and she is more comfortable eating. Everything is functioning normally, and it appears we will have a good recovery.

Pi and K would like to welcome Crystal, Tom and Michelle’s new golden, into the extended family. May your new life be better than your old life!

As I mentioned over on the house blog, K went in for emergency surgery for bloat at 2am on thursday morning. She spent a couple days in the ICU and came home Friday night. She is very drained and the codine is likely contributing to her rest.

I tried to give her a bone but she just held it in her mouth.

She had IVs in both front legs at the hospital, plus an EKG and all kinds of monitors on her other legs. They had to do a lot of shaving, so she is a bit patchy.

She has not flipped onto her back yet, so I haven’t taken a full picture of the incision, but it runs all the way from her sternum to her pelvic bone.

It seems like everything is going to be ok for her. For now, we will just take it easy and let her heal.

On our last trip, we stopped at the Holiday Inn Express in Cranberry, PA. Pi settled in on the bed. K likes to sleep in the tub, and this was very accessible.

We went home to visit mom and dad over spring break. My niece was having bring-your-pet-to-school day, and since π is the greatest dog ever, we brought her in to meet the class. The kids who weren’t afraid loved her, and π loved all the attention.