Category Archives: vet

My Own Pharmacy

Posted on
33

Once a week I have to sit down and divide and cut up Fred’s pills.  This week he had a few more because he was on an antibiotic for the growth that was removed off his side.

I’m sure many of you can relate to this picture.

Sure, I never thought I would have a dog that had to take daily medication twice a day.  I thought my pill cutter would only be used for my medicine.  Heck I don’t even have a pill organizer!!

For those that are new to our blog – Fred takes thyroid medication and phenobarbitol for his epilepsy.

As of last week there were not as many pills he was taking.  Fred had a thyroid level check and his blood test came back showing that it was still low so we had to up him a little more on this thyroid medicine.

Fred is feeling great so please dont worry.  Knock on wood we are still seizure free.  I would sit and cut and organize pills every day if it meant Fred would remain healthy and seizure free. 

Cheers to all the other druggie dogs!!

Fred and the Bump

Posted on
45

Fred has had a growth on his side for a little over a week, we have been keeping a close eye on it.  Its doubled in that week so I put a call into the vet yesterday when I got home.  He wanted to see Fred, so Fred and I loaded up and off to the vet we went.

Its not the best picture because a certain hound wouldn’t stand still but you can see the growth

My vet did have a gut feeling that it was non cancerous but he did want to remove it.  With Fred being an epileptic dog we try not to sedate him due to the increase risk of him seizing.  

Fred was a little nervous today and positioned himself between the exam table and the chair, in hopes that the doc wouldnt see him!

I opted not to go into the “back” with Fred this time.  One of my favorite vet techs was there to console Fred.  I was a little too nervous and that wasn’t going to help Fred.  Today he was very scared at the vet so I just didnt want to make it worse.

 

Fred has 4 staples and some stitches, he ate his dinner like a champ and slept very well last night.  Staples will come out in about 2 weeks.  Hopefully we can avoid the cone as long as he leaves it alone!

I did opt out of getting his growth biopsied, I did this for several reasons

  1.  The vet had a gut feeling it was not cancer – I love my vet and do trust him.
  2.   If it was cancer I would not subject Fred to chemo – he has been through enough in his life, we would just live day by day and enjoy the time we had.
  3.  I would rather take that $140 and spend it on Fred with things he loves and to spoil him!

Allergies aren't just for humans

Posted on
69

*****If you are on facebook we could please use your VOTE!!!  I entered a picture of Fred and Uncle Mickey for the look a like contest :)   You can vote once daily!  Please click https://www.facebook.com/#!/FetchCorporate?sk=app_262878517080091 to go and vote! Thank you ****

 

Saturday morning I noticed that Fred was itching again.

Fred went to the vet a few weeks ago because all down his back he had these little sores. 

He was given a steroid shot and a round of prednisone. 

Fast forward to Saturday.  Fred was miserable itching again.  I ran my had down his back and could feel the sores again.  Then I noticed in his groin area the sores had spread. 

Sigh…vet time again.  I really should own stock at my vet’s office.

We left there with a diagnosis of enviromental allergies with a secondary staph infection.

Fred is now on an antibiotic and steroids.  I will be holding my breath while he is on the antibiotic because alot of antibiotics can lower the effect of phenobarbitol and the last thing I would want is Fred to start seizing again.

The silver lining is that with Fred getting 6 pills twice a day now he loves all the cheese and turkey dogs that his pills are hidden in!

All is well

Posted on
32

Fred got his blood test results back from his recent thyroid panel and he is still low, we are increasing his medicine to .09 of thyroxine.  He is still feeling better than ever before.   Fred was a 1.0 on his T-4 before medicine and his post pill blood work had him at a 2.6 and the vet wants him at 3.0 so we are getting there!

We headed over to Manor (a small town about 45 mins away) to attend a festival and a BBQ cook off for some friends of Scott’s.  Of course it was game day so we also set up and watched the game there.  The weekend was a nice and quiet one.

I hope everyone else had a great weekend.

PS.  I’ve tried commenting on several blogs that use blogger and my comment disappears.  I did make sure that when I sign in to Google the box was unchecked for keep me logged in, I know this was the remedy last time.  If you have any other ideas please let me know!

Photobucket

Hi my name is Fred and I have Epilepsy

Posted on
40
Fred has canine epilepsy.  When Fred has seizures they are Grand Mal and it effects every inch of his body.
Fred started seizing out of the blue over a week ago.  He was a healthy happy 4 1/2yr old bloodhound.
Seizures are horrifying.  They say it gets easier as time goes by to watch your dog go through it. 
As each day passes that he is seizure free I will begin to not jump at every move he makes.
There is nothing I can do to cure him, but  I can control his epilepsy.
This takes time, patience, medicine, and one hell of a fight.
Fred is not in any pain, this is something I have to remind myself of daily.
He may be scared after wards but Scott and I are here for him to help him through that scary time and if we are not Haylie is hear to assure Fred this is where he belongs.
Right now there is allot of uncertainties but one thing is for sure no one is giving up on him.
Last night was the worst night ever with Fred.  I will explain in another post all about it.
Fred started his first dose of phenobarbital this morning. 
We are hopeful but we are scared.
I’m grateful to so many of you that check on us daily, post on your blogs about us, email me like crazy when I need support and allow me to cry to you when I’m scared.
I owe everyone a huge thank you for all your loving and supporting comments.
FRED is a fighter and is ready to FIGHT.

Dammit.

Posted on
46

Dammit…is the one word I can use to sum up my morning.

Fred had another seizure this morning at about 4:50am.
We were a little more prepared this time, well as prepared as you can get.
I was in the bathroom getting ready and Scott was by the closet getting ready. 
He noticed Fred acting disoriented on his bed and stiff.
Scott yelled out at me to stay in the bathroom.
I called Haylie to me in the bathroom and she didn’t come so Scott threw her in the bathroom once he got Fred secured.
Haylie and I sat in the bathroom.
Scott talked to Fred and was by his side.
He pushed away our bed so Fred would be safe while seizing and ran and got the ice packs and put them on Fred’s back during the seizure.  I read online this will help to cool the dog off and sometimes make them come out of seizing quicker.
Scott feels that it helped having the ice packs on him, he also said this one was not as worse as the first seizure.
This seizure was hard to swallow cause Fred whined during it and my heart just broke cause I felt he was in pain, although they say the dog cant feel anything.
Fred was pretty disoriented afterwards, he was barking at shadows, didn’t want to go into his crate to eat and was smelling every square inch. 
I wanted to stay home more than anything but there is nothing I can do for Fred.  He needs to rest and he just needs time to come back to himself.  Haylie and him were getting along fine so I grabbed my work bag and left.
I cried on the way to work.
This is his 3rd seizure in 2 weeks so Fred will be going on medicine I’m sure.  I will call the vet as soon as they open.
I will keep everyone posted.


Hanging On To Hope

Posted on
37
We saw the vet Tuesday and Fred got his stitches out in his eye, which healed great!
Dr. Jason had the test results back on a full blood work up on Fred.
Everything looked normal but his thyroid was showing 1.0
A normal dogs thyroid is from 1.0 – 4.0 he said but he really feels that 1.0 is too low for Fred and that he would like to see him on the higher end.
Fred is now on thyroid medicine and will have another blood test in 6 weeks to see how its working.
Dr. Jason does feel that Fred having a low thyroid might have resulted in him having seizures, only time will tell.
Fred having a low thyroid is my hope, its what im clinging on to. It comforts me for now in thinking he might not have another seizure if we can get his thyroid level steady and higher.

Deep Breath

Posted on
30
I worked yesterday. Life has to go on. I wanted to stay home and be by Fred’s side instead, I suppose that is the dog mom in me.
Fred is eating normal and acting normal. By normal I mean baying at every cat or person that walks by our house, running through the house and sliding around corners, running through the doggie door at top speeds like a gazelle running from a lion. He still eats every meal like he hasn’t ever been fed. He drinks water like a camel and then proceeds over to you and dramatically throws his head on your leg with drool and water that gets all over you because he wants to be petted. Then he tries to use those sad droopy eyes to get you to forgive him but he knows what he is up to!!
Last night I awoke suddenly to a strange noise coming from Fred’s bed – I yelled to Mr. S…… “Fred’s having a seizure!!!” We turned on the light and it was just Fred scratching his bed a million times to get comfortable.
I need to take a deep breath and relax.
We see the vet today.
Fred has to get his stitches out of his eye from the cyst that was surgerically removed 10 days ago.
I doubt we will have any results of his blood test back since that was just done Saturday morning but im keeping my fingers crossed.
I’m grateful from my post yesterday because several of you have experienced unfortunately what we are going through and now I am able to send you messages and talk to others for support and discuss this horrible disease.
I’m blessed to be part of a blogging community that cares so much and has opened their hearts to take time to comment and send your love and prayers.
I will keep everyone posted.

 

Seizure – Fred

Posted on
41
Saturday morning July 16th at 6:30am Fred had his first seizure. Fred is 4 years old and has had some bad luck since the day I rescued him. Poor Fred just can’t catch a break. Fred is clumsy, accident prone and has a very low immune system.
Fred is well known at the vet clinic not only cause he is a rare breed and looks like a mini horse but because he is in there often with ailments.
Just in the last year:
-Ate rat that had been poisoned – had to have vitamin K (someone in the neighborhood put poison out and the rats crawled into my yard and Fred decided to take them out)
-Fred slashed open his leg and had staples (still don’t know how)
-Had to have a dental cleaning
-Had to have a cyst cauterized off his eye lid
-Had to have the cyst surgically removed with stitches in his eye lid
-Rushed to the emergency clinic with stage 1 bloat
-Got pink eye from the dog park
And now I can add 2 seizures to that list. Sometimes I think I need to hang a dream catcher over Fred’s bed in hopes that some good luck will come his way.
Fred hasn’t ever shown any neurological signs. All of a sudden we were awoken by Fred in a full blown seizure on the floor and foaming at the mouth, he didn’t loose his bowels on this one. Mr. S just talked to him and sat on his side and petted him, it was about 2 mins long. Once Fred stopped seizing he just laid there over heated and in a daze. I could not watch or look over at Fred, it just ripped out my heart and I felt so helpless, scared and frozen. Haylie did get excited so I held her back while Mr. S was with Fred.
Once Fred calmed down he was disoriented and had some equilibrium issues and stumbled around but the interesting part is that he went around smelling every corner and inch of the inside of the house – like it was his first time ever in this house, (I bought this house a year ago) which is common from what I understand because they are still disoriented and in a haze. After awhile Fred was back to him normal self reeking havoc, baying and trying to have a UFC match in the living room with Haylie.
I received several wonderful comments of hope that people had/known a dog that seized once and never again. I really had my hopes up that it would be the same case with Fred. Although Fred had another full blown seizure with in that 24 hour period, so we are just taking it day by day right now.
Fred had a full blown blood test done, we are holding out hope that it will show something to as of why this happened and we can come up with a game plan.
If the blood test shows nothing then it’s a wait and see game. My vet will not put Fred on Phenobarbital until he is at least having 1 seizure a month.
Saturday my vet reminded me why I love him and only trust him with my dogs. He was wonderful and sat and listened to all my questions, calmed me down, handed me Kleenex and made me laugh.
I can’t express enough about how wonderful each and every one of you was to comment on facebook or stop by our blog and send us your prayers, stories, power of the paw and kind words. I appreciate each and every one of them and we could continue to use them.
During this whole seizure ordeal it was so comforting to be able to know that we had so much support around us.
Saturday – 2 seizures
Sunday – 0!!
Monday – we are keeping our fingers crossed I don’t find evidence he had one.
Each seizure free day is a victory.

Dental Time!

Posted on
13
I think Fred has had about as many surgeries as I have!
It’s no secret Fred has horrible genitics for bad teeth.  Fred will probably get his teeth cleaned once a year.
Fred had his teeth cleaned friday and wow they are WHITE now. 
Fred also had a cyst removed off his eyelid at the same time.  This cyst has been cauterized
but it grew back.  Fred is doing good – he has a few stitches and will have them removed next week.
While Fred was at the vet all day Haylie got to spend the whole day with just me….. ok and about 40 of her stuffies!!!  She wore herself out.. I guess its hard work tearing the heads, ears and eyes off your stuffies!!!