Truffles

Apparently Truffles was feeling left out with Shakey getting all the expensive veterinary attention. In July, we were taking the dogs to the park to go swimming and playing. Truffles had slowed down a little bit, but we just thought it was her age (she's 10) catching up to her.

But then towards the end of July, she was stopping a lot on our walks, so we took her to the vet who put her on Rimadyl. After 2 weeks I told him the Rimadyl made no improvement. He said "well, it must not be artheritis, then, it is probably Degnerative Myelopathy. What's that? DM is a neurological disease that is prevelent in German Shepherd Dogs, Boxers, Corgis and Chesepeake Bay Retreivers. Truffles is a Lab, but the vet said it's possible she could get it, too. He said we could either put her to sleep or take her to a neurologist. What choice is that?

So, we wisked her off to the Neurologist at the beginning of August for an MRI and X-Rays. Neurologist states that she has bad artheritis, but thankfully no compression to her spinal cord, so probably not DM. Hurray. He sends us home with a list of supplements a mile long.

End of August, she is having more trouble. Steve is carrying her outside to go potty because she can't negotiate the steps. And we have to give her support when she goes potty so she doesn't fall. She can walk a little bit, but not much. We take her back to the neurologist. "Oh, maybe she's hypothyroid, lets do a blood test." (note, blood test was $160, MRI was $2,000, one would think he would have started with the cheaper test...). But, when the results came back, she was normal for her "free-T-4", which Steve pointed out was not very 'free' at all!

So Neurologist (actually his intern) says "well, it must be an A-typical case of DM." Other than the supplements she's on, the only other thing you can do is hydrotherapy. I called the hydrotherapy place they recommended. It would have cost $750 upfront for 10 sessions and $65 each session after that. I called around and found a fancy dog hotel called the Barkley that has a fancy pool. They said "Hey for $25 for 30 minutes, we'll have a girl swim her." Great! So now Truffles goes swimming at the Barkley twice a week and LOVES it and the nice lady that showers her with attention. In fact, everyone there just fawns over Truffles. She loves her swim dates.
And they've been helping her a lot, too. She now fully extends her legs when she swims and uses all four legs. The girl is great, she knows just how long to let Truffles swim before she needs a break. It's the best $25 I spend! We're very pleased.

As of September, Steve has to carry her out to go potty and carry her everywhere. She can no longer sit, stand or walk.

We had a wonderful cart made by a wonderful man in Concord. He made it in a 'walker' style rather than stirrups holding her legs up, she actually walks in it and it supports her weight. She seems to like it.
I decided there was nothing to lose so we've started acupuncture with her. And the vet that does the acupuncture was Truffles very first vet, whom we only left because she sold her practice and moved away. Turns out she moved to a town close to where we moved to 4 years ago and now she does only holistic stuff. So Truffles has been reunited with Dr. Decker and is getting acupuncture. She seemed to respond to it with more energy and ability to hold herself upright now. Also, Dr. Decker decided to put her on Prednisone, a steriod. It seems to be helping, too. Dr. Decker agrees with the Neurologist that it doesn't seem to be DM, but also doesn't know what it is. Unlike the Neurologist, she's not giving up. She's been reading through medical journals to try to figure out what it could be.

Truffles is losing a ton of weight. We are feeding her as much as she'll eat, but she's still losing. Now Dr. Decker says maybe it's something attacking her muscles, rather than her nervous system. We have another acupuncture appointment on Friday and she's going to do some research before then to see if she can come up with anything. I like Dr. Nan Decker.

Ringbone

Shakey has ringbone. This sucks beyond belief. Who knows if or when I'll get to ride her again. Ringbone is osteo-artheritis in the lower leg, just above the hoof in the pastern. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. She is 22, afterall, which is not young by any stretch. Other than the mild lameness from the ringbone, she's in wonderful health, so I guess I should count my blessings. I've just never been very good at counting my blessings or looking on the bright-side.

No Marxists in the White House!

Nobody reads this so I can write whatever I want! It's liberating! This past weekend, I attended my husband's sister's wedding. It was opulent. She was stunningly beautiful. Her groom cried as he told her he loved her. It was wonderful. I like Steve's sister. She's as liberal as the rest of her family (sans Libertarian Steve), but unlike the rest of them, she respects other people's opinions and feelings. Sadly, Steve's aunts are just plain rude. In fact, they are more rude than I ever gave them credit for. On the boat ride to the island (did I mention this was a destination wedding? Cha-ching), we sat down and within a couple minutes they started making comments about how since Steve and I were from Ohio, it was our responsibility to make sure Obama gets elected. Steve and I both told them we were not voting for Obama. They were shocked. "Well, you're certainly not voting for McCain........are you?" Steve actually told them he was the 'Conservative Wing of the family." They went on a bit more and I kept my mouth shut because they are Steve's relatives and I really want to like them.

We got to the rehearsal dinner and they started up again. Katy came over at one point and her aunt said "We're talking politics." Katy when white as a ghost and said "Oh NO! Don't do that! Please!" But that didn't shut them up.

Of course the next day was the lovely wedding. Really NOT an appropriate place to talk politics (although I find that 99.9% of Liberals think they have the right to talk politics no matter what the venue or who is in earshot. and they just don't talk issues, they make nasty comments about people who don't agree with them. I say 99.9% because I do have 1 friend - Communist, actually, who doesn't do that.) Sadly, they started in again at the wedding reception. I kept trying to find common ground. I talked about organic food, and alternative energy and doesn't Katy look lovely in that dress, etc. Over dinner they started dissing people from small towns and rural people. Okay, that's it, asshole, now it's getting even more personal and I really can't take it anymore! I tried to be diplomatic. I told them how I identified with those small town rural people and frankly, I am that type of person they are complaining about. I figured if I let them know that they were starting to tread on my toes that they would finally stop talking politics at a wedding. They did. They also stopped talking to me altogether.

Then we gave Katy's friend a ride back to her hotel. She spent the WHOLE time bashing the Republicans and Conservatives and Clueless Country Hicks. Steve was just horrified about the whole thing. He apologized to me several times. His family and friends were WAY out of line and he felt bad. I don't blame him. He tried as hard as I did to change the subject both with his aunts and Katy's friend. These people would not be diswayed from their opinions.

But on a positive note, Steve felt so bad about his rotten family that he took me on a carriage ride, a trolley tour of Savannah and lunch at Paula Deen's restaurant! We also fell in love with Georgia. The people are WONDERFUL. 20 year old black guys holding doors open for me and saying "have a nice day, mam." Are you kidding?! Not just once but the whole trip everyone was so friendly. In Cleveland people just shove you out of the way. In Georgia everyone, no matter their ethnic background, was so friendly. If it weren't for the heat and the bugs, I could live there. I sure wish the Georgians would move North.

No really - she is

She's always been sorta nuts, but now she has dementia. And lucky me, I get to try to keep her alive. Have I mentioned I don't particularly like her? Never did. It's okay, she never liked me, either. Now I have to pretend to care. Well, actually, I just have to view her as somebody I don't know who needs help. I would help them, so I will help her. Lucky hubby gets to go along for the ride.