I swear I have angels surrounding me! A very dear friend of mine who is a nurse read my last blog and showed it to another nurse friend (and fellow animal lover). They both agreed I should contact Jack's vet and tell her how Jack has been acting as he could have some steroid psychosis. Thank you Carolyn and Karen!!!!!! As soon as I got the email, one quick Google search of "Prednisone steroid psychosis" and a list of sites came up. That's all I needed to see and I was immediately on the phone his vet's office and explained the situation with the vet tech. She said she the vet would call me back between 5:00-5:30pm. Pretty much at 5:00pm on the dot, my phone rang and it was her. I explained what was going on with Jack including the rat cage incident. She agreed that Jack has some steroid psychosis and wants to try weaning the Prednisone further.
The plan: 1 tablet per day for Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday. On Friday (today), start him on 1/2 tablet per day for 1 week. On the Friday the 31st, start Jack on 1/4 tablet of Prednisone for 1 week and then call with an update. Jack is doing well so far and we have found him cuddling with Roxy on several occasions which I think is a good sign.
Roxy is eating again without having to be spoon fed. As long as we keep Jack away from her, she's fine. However, if Jack comes anywhere near her, game over - she won't eat and walks away. If only I could hear what Jack is threatening her with....
After months of stomach problems, I about had it and went to the doctor on Wednesday. They took blood and so far, all of the results are coming back within normal limits. Phew! They also sent me home with all these containers which I have to return to them with.....yep you guessed it. You've got to be kidding me. THEY are doctors, shouldn't I just be doing that at the office and letting THEM take care of it? That's what I pay THEM for. I'm so not looking forward to this. The doc also prescribed some meds to help. So far, I haven't seen a huge improvement...but I do seem more calm, so maybe that's a start.
Yesterday morning when I woke Daisy up to give her her meds, her eyes didn't seem to have that *alert* look to them as usual. At first I thought I was overreacting out of fear of losing her or maybe she was just tired, however last night when I got home, I checked on Daisy. Oh dear.
- a bit wobbly/unstable
- a little disoriented
- the look in her eyes is different - not so alert and she has a "lost" look about her now
- startles quickly when we touch her (this is so unlike her)
- when we stroke her head, she quickly pushes/jerks her head up
- she had specks of porphyrin around her face and feet
- she'll sit with her head to the corner, or up against a wall or the side of her cage
- she's not using her front paws to pick up food, but rather just stuffs her face in her food bowl to eat
- if we aren't holding her, she sorta looks like a porcupine (which I know is a sign that she's not feeling well)
The first thing that comes to mind is a pituitary tumor. Shit.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
October 17, 2008
I have been seriously lacking updating my blog. I guess that's a good thing...there really hasn't been any eventful news. Well, not until now....but I'll get to the good news first.
Jack's feet are doing well. We have cut back his Prednisone 2x now and currently he is being given 2 tabs every other day. (He started with 2 tabs 2x a day.) The Doxycycline has stayed the same at 1-1/2 tabs 2x a day. I've taken some pictures of his feet and will need to post them when I get a chance. You will be amazed by how much better they look.
His appetite is one that reminds me of a wild starving wolf. Jack turns into an ugly beast when food is involved. He becomes deaf, his eyes are fixated on whatever it is he wants - so much so that his eyes almost appear to be popping from his skull - and he drools incessantly. He will slowly move in as if he's stalking his prey, and then will make a mad dash for it. As some of you know, we don't have carpet in our house, so he leaves drool blobs everywhere on our floor. Needless to say, we do ALOT of swiffering! The Prednisone has really caused a lot of muscle wasting in his head and back legs. When he's in a laying down position and he gets up, sometimes he struggles and his back legs will shake. His head is no longer "meaty" and the bones in his face appear to be protruding. They're not of course. It's just he has no muscle. Jack has always been a clingy dog, always having to lay near us or on us. That's all changed. He's not cuddly anymore....he'd rather lay on his dog bed and wait for one of us to go into the kitchen so he can stalk his food.
Roxy continues to be Miss Finicky with her food. I may try homecooked for her again to see how she does. At first I thought she didn't feel well, but she's eager to eat whatever we are eating which leads me to believe I've created a spoiled princess. Either that, or she's jealous of all the fussing we do over Jack. Either one makes sense I suppose.
Daisy is back on meds again as I found the blood in her urine has returned. Brad and I are terrified to get her spayed so Doc McRoberts agreed to try ONE more round of antibiotics. If the blood returns, however, we will have to grow some cojones and have her spayed. Brad is not happy and is hoping this final round of antibiotics will kill whatever it is that is making her pee blood. He loves his girl Daisy so much, he'll be crushed if something happens to her.
OK now to the good stuff! My usual routine when I get home from work is to get out of my work clothes and the start preparing Jack & Roxy's dinner. Yesterday as soon as I got home from work, I changed my shoes and Brad and I left to go grocery shopping. Big mistake not feeding Jack before we left. The saga begins! We returned home about 7:15pm and I was the first person to enter the house. I took mental note that Brad did not set the alarm when we left (he was the last one out of the house), but I brushed it off. I hung up my purse on the back of the bar stool and went to walk back to the garage. I happened to look over towards the front room (where we keep the rats) and to my amazement, our 5 foot tall rat cage had been pulled out from the wall and was laying on it's back! I gasped and ran into the front room thinking we were burglarized and ransacked, as I remembered our alarm had not been set. I looked around the room and everything else was in it's place. I looked down at the cage and the cage was not attached to the bottom tray which left the whole bottom of the cage OPEN. Huummm... no evidence of any poop either. I knew exactly what had happened. I didn't feed Jack and he took it upon himself to find something to eat. Rat poo! Lovely. Lucky for Jack, he is very loved and Mommy is VERY patient with him. (Daddy not so much!) We have 8 rats in that cage - WHERE ARE THEY? Brad came in and saw what happened. He immediately started yelling at Jack and I made him stop. Jack's instincts kicked in and he was only doing what he thought he needed to do - eat. Jack is one determined stubborn dog and the poor dude thinks he's starving all the time so he thought he'd help himself to rat shit, which he did. Ultimately, it's my fault. if I had fed him before I left, this most likely would not have happened. **big sigh** While standing there in shock, Doughnut happened to poke his head out from inside one of the hammocks. Brad pointed and yelled "There's Dodohead!" Brad quickly set up the rats' play pen and I reached in the cage and got Doughnut. One by one, the boys all started poking their cute little heads out from various hammocks, cubbies, and fleece. I found all of them, but Angus was nowhere to be found. Brad got very angry and said Jack is going to be in big trouble if he's hurt Angus in any way. For those of you who don't know Angus, he's our 2-lb tank of a rat. There is nothing lean about Angus and I don't think the rat could scurry if he wanted to. He's a big fat white adorable blob, who only has 1 eye. I started moving around everything in the cage, and when I moved the blue cubby, it felt heavy. Sure enough, Angus was hiding in the back. Phew, Jack gets to continue living in the house. I got the blue cubby out and put it in the play pen with the rest of the rats. They ALL piled in this blue cubby. How? I have no idea! Here's a picture of the blue cubby - can you imagine 8 rats in that thing? Somehow they managed! Poor guys were SO freaked out and scared!
Once all of the rats were removed from the cage, we put clean towels on the bottom and set the cage back upright in the tray and moved it back against the wall. I took the latch springs from Junior's cage and put them on the big cage. (That will keep the tray attached to the cage in case something like this happens again.) We cleaned up the mess both inside and outside of the cage. Unfortunately, one of the ceramic dishes we use to put their salad in broke...good thing none of them got hurt.
Once we got their cage ready, we went to put the rats back in. They were all crammed in the cubby and I had to take the top off to get them out. Poor Angus was on the bottom of the rat pile and he had peed so now we have a 2-lb rat whose whole tail and undercarriage is sopping wet with piss. Uggg. I got all of the rats back in the cage and took Angus to the kitchen sink and gave him a nice bath with baby shampoo. No more wet stinky pee rat! Afterwards, I had him on my lap while I was drying him off. He seemed to be enjoying it and licked my hands in appreciation, he's such a love.
Afterwards, I looked around and noticed all of the other rats in the other cages were all hiding too. I'm assuming the loud crash of the big rat cage falling back got all the other rats completely freaked out. :o(
If you're wondering, yes I made Jack his dinner afterwards. I will admit, a little part of me thought, "No, he needs to be punished" but we are talking about a dog who is taking Prednisone, not an unruly child who just needs a good ass whoopin'.
Today I'm a little uneasy. Is this going to happen again while we're at work? If so, I'll be forced to move the cages into one of the spare bedrooms. Where? I have no clue - it's not like there's room in either spare bedroom. :o/
Did I mention I think I found a grey hair?
Jack's feet are doing well. We have cut back his Prednisone 2x now and currently he is being given 2 tabs every other day. (He started with 2 tabs 2x a day.) The Doxycycline has stayed the same at 1-1/2 tabs 2x a day. I've taken some pictures of his feet and will need to post them when I get a chance. You will be amazed by how much better they look.
His appetite is one that reminds me of a wild starving wolf. Jack turns into an ugly beast when food is involved. He becomes deaf, his eyes are fixated on whatever it is he wants - so much so that his eyes almost appear to be popping from his skull - and he drools incessantly. He will slowly move in as if he's stalking his prey, and then will make a mad dash for it. As some of you know, we don't have carpet in our house, so he leaves drool blobs everywhere on our floor. Needless to say, we do ALOT of swiffering! The Prednisone has really caused a lot of muscle wasting in his head and back legs. When he's in a laying down position and he gets up, sometimes he struggles and his back legs will shake. His head is no longer "meaty" and the bones in his face appear to be protruding. They're not of course. It's just he has no muscle. Jack has always been a clingy dog, always having to lay near us or on us. That's all changed. He's not cuddly anymore....he'd rather lay on his dog bed and wait for one of us to go into the kitchen so he can stalk his food.
Roxy continues to be Miss Finicky with her food. I may try homecooked for her again to see how she does. At first I thought she didn't feel well, but she's eager to eat whatever we are eating which leads me to believe I've created a spoiled princess. Either that, or she's jealous of all the fussing we do over Jack. Either one makes sense I suppose.
Daisy is back on meds again as I found the blood in her urine has returned. Brad and I are terrified to get her spayed so Doc McRoberts agreed to try ONE more round of antibiotics. If the blood returns, however, we will have to grow some cojones and have her spayed. Brad is not happy and is hoping this final round of antibiotics will kill whatever it is that is making her pee blood. He loves his girl Daisy so much, he'll be crushed if something happens to her.
OK now to the good stuff! My usual routine when I get home from work is to get out of my work clothes and the start preparing Jack & Roxy's dinner. Yesterday as soon as I got home from work, I changed my shoes and Brad and I left to go grocery shopping. Big mistake not feeding Jack before we left. The saga begins! We returned home about 7:15pm and I was the first person to enter the house. I took mental note that Brad did not set the alarm when we left (he was the last one out of the house), but I brushed it off. I hung up my purse on the back of the bar stool and went to walk back to the garage. I happened to look over towards the front room (where we keep the rats) and to my amazement, our 5 foot tall rat cage had been pulled out from the wall and was laying on it's back! I gasped and ran into the front room thinking we were burglarized and ransacked, as I remembered our alarm had not been set. I looked around the room and everything else was in it's place. I looked down at the cage and the cage was not attached to the bottom tray which left the whole bottom of the cage OPEN. Huummm... no evidence of any poop either. I knew exactly what had happened. I didn't feed Jack and he took it upon himself to find something to eat. Rat poo! Lovely. Lucky for Jack, he is very loved and Mommy is VERY patient with him. (Daddy not so much!) We have 8 rats in that cage - WHERE ARE THEY? Brad came in and saw what happened. He immediately started yelling at Jack and I made him stop. Jack's instincts kicked in and he was only doing what he thought he needed to do - eat. Jack is one determined stubborn dog and the poor dude thinks he's starving all the time so he thought he'd help himself to rat shit, which he did. Ultimately, it's my fault. if I had fed him before I left, this most likely would not have happened. **big sigh** While standing there in shock, Doughnut happened to poke his head out from inside one of the hammocks. Brad pointed and yelled "There's Dodohead!" Brad quickly set up the rats' play pen and I reached in the cage and got Doughnut. One by one, the boys all started poking their cute little heads out from various hammocks, cubbies, and fleece. I found all of them, but Angus was nowhere to be found. Brad got very angry and said Jack is going to be in big trouble if he's hurt Angus in any way. For those of you who don't know Angus, he's our 2-lb tank of a rat. There is nothing lean about Angus and I don't think the rat could scurry if he wanted to. He's a big fat white adorable blob, who only has 1 eye. I started moving around everything in the cage, and when I moved the blue cubby, it felt heavy. Sure enough, Angus was hiding in the back. Phew, Jack gets to continue living in the house. I got the blue cubby out and put it in the play pen with the rest of the rats. They ALL piled in this blue cubby. How? I have no idea! Here's a picture of the blue cubby - can you imagine 8 rats in that thing? Somehow they managed! Poor guys were SO freaked out and scared!
Once all of the rats were removed from the cage, we put clean towels on the bottom and set the cage back upright in the tray and moved it back against the wall. I took the latch springs from Junior's cage and put them on the big cage. (That will keep the tray attached to the cage in case something like this happens again.) We cleaned up the mess both inside and outside of the cage. Unfortunately, one of the ceramic dishes we use to put their salad in broke...good thing none of them got hurt.
Once we got their cage ready, we went to put the rats back in. They were all crammed in the cubby and I had to take the top off to get them out. Poor Angus was on the bottom of the rat pile and he had peed so now we have a 2-lb rat whose whole tail and undercarriage is sopping wet with piss. Uggg. I got all of the rats back in the cage and took Angus to the kitchen sink and gave him a nice bath with baby shampoo. No more wet stinky pee rat! Afterwards, I had him on my lap while I was drying him off. He seemed to be enjoying it and licked my hands in appreciation, he's such a love.
Afterwards, I looked around and noticed all of the other rats in the other cages were all hiding too. I'm assuming the loud crash of the big rat cage falling back got all the other rats completely freaked out. :o(
If you're wondering, yes I made Jack his dinner afterwards. I will admit, a little part of me thought, "No, he needs to be punished" but we are talking about a dog who is taking Prednisone, not an unruly child who just needs a good ass whoopin'.
Today I'm a little uneasy. Is this going to happen again while we're at work? If so, I'll be forced to move the cages into one of the spare bedrooms. Where? I have no clue - it's not like there's room in either spare bedroom. :o/
Did I mention I think I found a grey hair?
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