burnout
The blood test results came in yesterday and Ella's kidneys are doing pretty poorly. The vet wants me to put her in the hospital for three days to bring her values down, and then start fluid therapy at home, which basically consists of administering subcutaneous fluid an undetermined number of times per week, ranging from once per day to three times a week.
After discussion, what we decided to do is that I will keep Ella at home for a couple of days, to see if I can actually do the fluid therapy and medication at home, and whether she will tolerate it. If she or I can't handle the ongoing treatment, then there is no point in an expensive hospital stay.
If after a day or two we feel confident that we can handle the treatment, then we will revisit putting her in the hospital to bring the values down.
I was extremely concerned about my ability to administer the fluid and how she would feel about being stuck twice a day (the hope is that once her levels are down, we could reduce it to, as I said, anywhere between once a day to three times per week). I don't want to make either of us miserable. They showed me how to do it at the vet's office and the tech actually let me do the stick, which I was thankful for because I would have been really scared to do it at home. But she admonished me to do one swift poke, and I did, and it worked. She actually protested harder at the vet's office than she did this morning. This morning she was still mostly asleep, and I pretty much just scooped her bed up, carried it over to the bag, pulled up on the loose skin of her neck. this made her pick her head up to see what I was doing, but she didn't react to the needle stick at all, even though I was a little clumsier about it this time. Once the needle was in she put her head back down to go back to sleep, which caught me off guard and almost resulted in badness - I was holding the needle loosely just to keep it straight and when she put her head down it slipped out of my hands and swung off to the side, which made her pick her head up again, but I straightened it and it never actually came out at any point, so it was all okay. The hardest part was that I had hung the bag up so high that I couldn't see the measurement on the floor, but I couldn't stand up without letting go of the needle, and I started to panic a little bit so I shut tube thingy and took the needle out, but it turned out that she got exactly the amount I intended to give her. So that was a little clumsey but not too traumatic for either of us. She may feel differently when she is fully awake or after she has been stuck twice a day for a week (she really doesn't have loose skin anywhere else, all the sticks will have to be in the same area), but so far so good.
She did get up at 4 a.m. to potty, so I'm thinking I will give her the night dose closer to 8 or 9 unless she is just looking really lethargic.
She is not particularly fond of getting the oral medecine, so a little bit of it gets on me instead of in her, but that's not too bad.
So now I have some decisions to make, whether I will go ahead and put her in the hospital to bring her values down if this experiment succeeds, or if I will just continue the therapy at home and hope we can get them down that way. The hospital stay is just really expensive and while my feelings all say 'dooooooooo iiiiiiiiit,' my mother's argument that to spend a couple of thousand dollars on a pet her age is stupid, is not entirely without merit. The vet said he would consider the treatment successful if she got another six months to a year of good quality life. If the hospital stay isn't necessary, if we can do the fluid therapy at home and bring her values down and work with that, then that is probably the smart thing to do. But at the same time...I want my baby to get better, and I don't think it's fair to refuse to treat her just because she is old. So I don't know.
The other problem is that I am going to be out of town on Friday, and while sbodd valiantly volunteered to try and give her the fluids for me while I am gone, I am skeptical that he can do so. He is not very experienced with dogs and has a terrible track record with needles and medical stuff. If we don't decide to put her in the hospital by then, I may see if he can just take her to the vet and have them do it for him those two times. I don't even know what we'll do about Christmas, but that's a long way from now. I was planning to just take her to Texas with me this year, but if she's not healthy I don't know if that can happen. If it doesn't, I don't know what I will do about the fluid treatments. Maybe we will be down to 3 times a week at that point and David can just take her to the vet.
She ate without vomiting last night, so I think the medecine is working at least. I have been really worried since she hasn't been able to keep any food down since Saturday, so I was glad to see her eat. She didn't want any food on Sunday and then on Monday she tried to eat but threw it all back up again.
So for right now, she is hydrated and has gotten some nutrients into her, so I feel like I can relax a little bit and not be so sickeningly anxious...but I still have some tough decisions to make. :o(
After discussion, what we decided to do is that I will keep Ella at home for a couple of days, to see if I can actually do the fluid therapy and medication at home, and whether she will tolerate it. If she or I can't handle the ongoing treatment, then there is no point in an expensive hospital stay.
If after a day or two we feel confident that we can handle the treatment, then we will revisit putting her in the hospital to bring the values down.
I was extremely concerned about my ability to administer the fluid and how she would feel about being stuck twice a day (the hope is that once her levels are down, we could reduce it to, as I said, anywhere between once a day to three times per week). I don't want to make either of us miserable. They showed me how to do it at the vet's office and the tech actually let me do the stick, which I was thankful for because I would have been really scared to do it at home. But she admonished me to do one swift poke, and I did, and it worked. She actually protested harder at the vet's office than she did this morning. This morning she was still mostly asleep, and I pretty much just scooped her bed up, carried it over to the bag, pulled up on the loose skin of her neck. this made her pick her head up to see what I was doing, but she didn't react to the needle stick at all, even though I was a little clumsier about it this time. Once the needle was in she put her head back down to go back to sleep, which caught me off guard and almost resulted in badness - I was holding the needle loosely just to keep it straight and when she put her head down it slipped out of my hands and swung off to the side, which made her pick her head up again, but I straightened it and it never actually came out at any point, so it was all okay. The hardest part was that I had hung the bag up so high that I couldn't see the measurement on the floor, but I couldn't stand up without letting go of the needle, and I started to panic a little bit so I shut tube thingy and took the needle out, but it turned out that she got exactly the amount I intended to give her. So that was a little clumsey but not too traumatic for either of us. She may feel differently when she is fully awake or after she has been stuck twice a day for a week (she really doesn't have loose skin anywhere else, all the sticks will have to be in the same area), but so far so good.
She did get up at 4 a.m. to potty, so I'm thinking I will give her the night dose closer to 8 or 9 unless she is just looking really lethargic.
She is not particularly fond of getting the oral medecine, so a little bit of it gets on me instead of in her, but that's not too bad.
So now I have some decisions to make, whether I will go ahead and put her in the hospital to bring her values down if this experiment succeeds, or if I will just continue the therapy at home and hope we can get them down that way. The hospital stay is just really expensive and while my feelings all say 'dooooooooo iiiiiiiiit,' my mother's argument that to spend a couple of thousand dollars on a pet her age is stupid, is not entirely without merit. The vet said he would consider the treatment successful if she got another six months to a year of good quality life. If the hospital stay isn't necessary, if we can do the fluid therapy at home and bring her values down and work with that, then that is probably the smart thing to do. But at the same time...I want my baby to get better, and I don't think it's fair to refuse to treat her just because she is old. So I don't know.
The other problem is that I am going to be out of town on Friday, and while sbodd valiantly volunteered to try and give her the fluids for me while I am gone, I am skeptical that he can do so. He is not very experienced with dogs and has a terrible track record with needles and medical stuff. If we don't decide to put her in the hospital by then, I may see if he can just take her to the vet and have them do it for him those two times. I don't even know what we'll do about Christmas, but that's a long way from now. I was planning to just take her to Texas with me this year, but if she's not healthy I don't know if that can happen. If it doesn't, I don't know what I will do about the fluid treatments. Maybe we will be down to 3 times a week at that point and David can just take her to the vet.
She ate without vomiting last night, so I think the medecine is working at least. I have been really worried since she hasn't been able to keep any food down since Saturday, so I was glad to see her eat. She didn't want any food on Sunday and then on Monday she tried to eat but threw it all back up again.
So for right now, she is hydrated and has gotten some nutrients into her, so I feel like I can relax a little bit and not be so sickeningly anxious...but I still have some tough decisions to make. :o(