Lucky goes to the dermotologist, day 306

I sit here with Lucky laying across my feet. Koko, his Mom is pressed on my left side and his sister, Aly is half on my shoulder. I wish I had 3 arms to I could pet them all at the same time. This is the life.

A lot has happened in the last month. Lucky jumped on the bed one day. He's gotten up to 32 lbs with ascites (excessive fluid in the abdomin) and come back down. Up and down, the story of our life.

On the plus side I got Lucky to eat the special Liver diet food. :-)

I took him to see the dermotologist, who knew animals had dermotologist? I wish I had know that years ago. Maybe Lucky's Mom would not have needed ear surgery. Well anyway I took lucky because his ears are not getting any better and he cannot have the ear surgery. I had forgotten his Red Blood Cell (RBC) has been low since he ate the Sago. It's 21, normal is 35. This is considered a huge difference. Sometimes he shows the jaundice and sometimes he doesn't. I wish I understood this.

The dermotologist cleaned his ears so well they did not stink anymore. I could let him sleep in the bed with us. His ears had been so bad he was stinking up the entire house and both of us are sensitive to smell, I don't know how we managed but we did. But we could not sleep with him.

The dermotologist gave us a shampoo to bath Lucky every 48 hrs. We have 2 washes to puty in his ears every day and an antibiotic goes in his ears twice a day. There is some conditioner to put on his skin when we bath him. And he has atarax for dogs, twice a day. He's been on that before. And we don't even know which oral antibiotics he will be on till the culture grows. I work at home so I am always with the dogs. but I work long hrs I don't have time for all of this so I can't imagine people who have to go to an office. But make the time I will, we did not come this far and spend this much money to let a bath get in our way.

All three dogs ended up in the bed with us. We have to be fair. Usually they all surround me but he was being needy and ran his mom and sister off to the other side with my husband. We had a nice night but in the morning I found he had thrown-up. I just don't understand why he keeps going from ok to bad and back.

I started researching the liver again. Apparently it is very common for humans or animals with cirrhosis to be underweight and malnurished. It does not make me not want to fatten him up but at least I know I am not doing anything wrong.

The vets are amazed that I can tell when he is retaining fluid. I never realized it was so difficult. I reach under his belly while he is standing and push at his belly quickly with my fingers only. If it's jiggly like a ballon filled with water I keep doing it to get a feel for how much it is. On a dog that does not have acsites the belly will not move like that and will feel more meaty. I have the benefit of having 3 of these dogs so I can compare how his feels compared to the others. Sometimes it's not too bad and I track it based on his weight.

See ya, we're going to take a bath!

Lucky does not feel well, day 290

Just when I started thinking we might be able to proclaim Lucky's survival, we got a kick in the head. On of those kicks that says, "you big idiot". I have been hoping all along we could get to the point where we felt he would make it, we could relax. But instead I know realize we will never get there. When he gets to be an old boy, that's when we can say, "he made it".

So what happened..... He went to the vet for his ears again and when I weighed him he was 28 LBS. I was shocked. I had stopped his daily weighings when he stopped gaining water weight. Dr M was hopeful it was actual fat, I had my reservations. I felt his abdomin and could feel the ballon like feeling. But you never know. I started the daily weighings again and sure enough he started going down after about 1 week.

I started weighing his sister Aly too. She is getting fat from eating all the treats intended for Lucky. :-) They weighed exactly the same. The race was on to get the weigh off of her and him and then get him fat.

Lucky has been on antibiotics for over 1 month for his ears and I think they are getting to him. He vomits daily now, all the food he eats and he looks very skinny again. I know he has about 3LBS of just water. He no longer has the strength to jump on the bed but he is in good spirits. I won't be giving him the antibiotics again until I prove to myself they were not the cause.

Then our buddy Beanie, took a turn for the worse. She liver numbers are up and she is not feeling well. We all thought she was well on the road to recovery. This more than anything made me realize we will never know if Lucky will make it, until he has his 12th or 13th birthday.

Lucky's Mom, Koko had her second ear surgery yesterday and she is not doing great. She is staying in the hospital another day because she falls over. The vet is hopeful this will go away eventually. Poor Koko, she has also been though so much and is always a trooper.

After her first surgery (2 weeks ago) she came home in one of those collars and she turned into a one dog wrecking crew. She seemed even more surprised than we did when item after item fell and broke in her path. :-)

Lucky was on antibiotics to prevent him from getting like Koko. The operations would be very hard on him, not even sure it could be done. What are we going to do with these Cocker ears?

Our daily thoughts are with Beanie and her family.

Lucky had a UTI, day 262

Lucky started getting worse and was not eating. It all seem to start after his annual booster shot for something or the other. He also seemed to be in pain so of course we headed straight for Dr. M, I told him it was time for another liver test.

When we went in I was told it was time for Lucky's annual exam which involves several test including a urinalysis.

Lucky's liver test was only slightly different, that the last time. One of his emzymes was higher. That was not better but it was not so bad either.

His ears were worse so I decided to do another test to find out what was in his ears. His ears were hurting a lot and when Dr. M tried to get some junk out Lucky cried and lashed out. So I tired and he put his mouth on my hand to warn me away. Well I won't take any grandstanding from my dogs so the tech and vet left so I could deal with him. This meant putting a muzzle on him. Well he won. :-) So they came and got him and took him to the back and no had no issue getting what they needed he was the perfect gentleman. I was not amused because he lets me touch his easr even when they hurt. He knows I will not hurt him anymore. As I thought about I realized it had nothing to do with his ears, it was the muzzle. I use to muzzle him to try and force the pills in him and he has never forgotten. He has real issues with pills.

We were all baffled about why he would not eat. I left to wait for the call about his ears in a few days. Maybe his ears were bothering him enough to make him not want to eat.

The next day Dr V called me, Lucky has a UTI. She wants to know do I want to pick-up pills or do the more expensive 1 shot that gives him an antibiotic for 2 weeks. I know, she knew there was no way I was doing pills with this dog no matter how much that shot cost. Getting a pill in him is like thinking I'm going to walk the Great Wall of China with back problems so severe I can't take a step without being in pain. yes, it is that bad. So in we go for the shot and three days later he is eating.

But we all know that is not the end of the story..........the day he starts eating I get a call from Dr M. Lucky has 4 things growing in his ears and he needs to take 2 antibiotics 2 times a day forever. I'm sure he did not say forever but it's along time, like 6 weeks. So for Lucky and I it might was well be a lifetime.

Looking on the bright side something good did happen. The problem was not his liver and 1 shot cured him from the UTI.

Lucky is so skinny, day 238

I got back from my trip yesterday and found Lucky so thin. I had told the vet he was retaining some fluid but he was not 100% sure. It was not real bad but he made him look a bit heavier. We had hoped it was fat. Meat on his bones as Dr M says. On the plus side (Ithink), he drained the water by himself. Lucky has not been on any meds for some time now. He got sick and tired of all the meds. He would not take anything and I stopped trying to force him.

My daughter and her family moved into the house to stay with the dogs while we were gone. He wouldn't eat a lot but she always takes good care of him and he was eating. She told me he looked angry or sad. She did not want the small kids around him. I think part of it was he missed me. On the othert hand he does look a bit sad. We will be going to the vet this week to get his liver numbers just to be sure because he once again has that breath that could knock you out. Like something died in there. :-(

Lucky gets on the bed and has shots, day 234

I went away for the week-end with Lucky's other human grandma. This left my husband in charge of all three dogs. Lucky is close to me there is hardly anyone he will leave the house with. it's like he's afraid he won'tome back. Maybe it was all those hospital stays. He's become quite neurotic but he's ours and he's alive. :-)



We left Friday afternoon . Saturday morning when my husband let the dogs out for there morning baldder run and back in he went back to bed figuring only Aly could make it on the bed to cuddle. He doesn't like it when all three of them are in the bed because he likes to take up most of the bed. Much to his surprise when he woke-up Lucky was there where I would normally be. He was so excited and called me right away. We had a celebration.



Last week on another one of our many visits to see Dr. M, he felt Lucky was well enough to have his very over due vaccines. Since everything is processed via the liver he had only had rabies. Dr. M did not want anything going through his liver that was not 100% needed. Who would have ever thought I would measure his wellness by a yearly vaccine. The tech brought the vaccines and when Dr M saw how many there were he told the tech he was only doing 3 of the 6. Only one shot, one nasal, and one liquid he had to swallow. We discussed Lucky's ears. Unfortunately he has Cocker ears and we are trying everything for him not to go the the way of his Mother, she will be having ear surgery next week.

Lucky almost made it on the bed,day 204

He's got excess water, again. It's a weekly thing now. But today he tried to make it on the bed to hide his treat and he almost made it. I caught him and pushed him up as he was falling but the fact that he even tried was promising. He has not tried since he got sick and failed to make it up.

I still don't know what to think and his numbers are the same, not too bad, not better. The vets just say, the longer he lives the better his long-term chances of survival. I could have a liver biopsy done but there are risk with it and the anestesia. I told the vet it was not worth the risk. No matter what the biopsy said, I would not change his care. I will care for him till the end as if he will live 10 more years.

Last week-end I went to the beach and my friend and Lucky's other human grandma came to pick-up all three dogs to stay overnight with her and Lucky's dad. Lucky would not leave and he snapped when she tried to get his leash on him. Very odd behaviour because he still loves to go bye-bye. He has become so close to me that he does not want to leave this house unless it's with me. I happen to find this depressing for him. When I go in any room and shut the door he lays so close his hair is coming through the bottom of the door so I always let him in. :-)

Then there is Lucky's ears. They don't seem to be getting better. But we can't give him any strong meds because of his liver. Can't even give him his shots except rabies.

I wonder if we will get to a year and still not know anything else?

Lucky is still fighting, day 199

It's been exactly 1 month since my last post. I wish I could say that because Lucky was better and there was nothing to say. Instead it's because of work. Don't these people know I have sick dogs to take care of, i really don't have time to work. No one listens to me.

Well anyway, Lucky is about the same. on certains weeks he gains the water weight and I give him Lasix. It's been working. He was 30 LBS two days ago. Today he is 26.2. he's been jumping a bit more and that good.

He is eating his Mom's dog feed most days except when the water is at it's highest. He is still eating as many wheaties as I will give him. :-) And the fruits are still a favorite of his too.

He is skinny and his hair falls out but he seems happy! Till next time.