Dog Days of Summer

It’s been an interesting week. But it has ended relatively well.

My dear sweet beagle Zoe has not been feeling well. We took her in to get her teeth cleaned and to have a cyst removed from her eye a few weeks ago, and while she was there we mentioned that she has been a bit slow moving and achy. They did an X-ray of her hips and spine while she was there, but they couldn’t find any problems.

The vet thought it could be a type of soft-tissue arthritis and prescribed some medication. The day after we brought her home she seemed energetic and we assumed it was the pills that were prescribed. But as the days went by, she started to feel bad again. In fact, it appeared to be getting worse.

In addition to her achiness, she also had a red spot develop on her chest. It looked like a rash or a burn about the size of a fist. So I called the vet’s office and Robbie took in her in for a visit about the chest wound as well as the continued achiness. They ran a bunch of urine and bloodwork while she was at the office. Her blood glucose was around 600 which is REALLY high, but they felt like that was a mistake and sent it out to a lab to have them check it as well. They called a few days later and confirmed that her blood sugar was indeed high, and that she was definitely diabetic. She probably felt better after the first visit because we had fasted her before the surgery and her blood sugar dropped. The chest wound ended up being some sort of bizarre burn. We are assuming she laid on something hot in the yard.

So Friday we dropped her off so they could do a “curve”. They kept her all day and monitored her glucose throughout the day after giving her an initial dose on insulin. Unfortunately her curve didn’t really curve much. Her glucose stayed above five hundred. At the end of the day we were trained on how to inject insulin and were given instructions on what to do over the weekend. Tuesday they are hoping that her blood sugar has dropped enough so that they can do a proper curve.

She has been feeling somewhat better over the weekend. She is still lethargic at times, but now has bursts of energy that she wasn’t exhibiting before. She ran around the yard quite a bit, and has been playing both in the yard and in the house. It is nice to have hope that she can be like this all the time in the future once we get this regulated a bit. Dogs are so full of unconditional love, and it breaks my heart when one of my girls isn't feeling well. They can't say "I feel like crap! Help me!" So you have to try to sense how they feel. It can be difficult, especially when they are good-natured and try to hide their pain.

As far as I go, I’ve been feeling good. Most days I am completely back to normal. I notice if I don’t get enough sleep over several days that I start to feel run down, but I think everybody feels that way. I am also able to fully taste fruit again and that has been wonderful – that was really my last taste sensation to return. I am still a little sensitive to super-tangy things and have to be a bit careful or I get a little bit of a gag reflex.

July will bring my next PET Scan and a follow-up with my oncologist. I’m anxious to get an “all-clear”. As I’ve said before, every day that passes lessens my chances of recurrence.

Hope your summer is going well. Be sure to hug your pets!