Rescue Journal

it was not a good night

Carol  ·  Sep. 16, 2007

clyde started seizuring around midnight. the phenobarb is helping, while it was still a grand mal, it was slower, less violent and he recovered quicker. but i am quite concerned at the already high dose he is on and the implications for damaging his liver. i will talk to the vet tomorrow.

wilbur i think is in real trouble. i found him this morning saturated in a huge puddle of watery bloody vomit. because he is so poorly bred and his esophagus is so short and his long term diabetes and his tendency to frequently vomit large amounts of watery fluid...i am pretty sure that either, he tore a small blood vessel while vomitting or he has a small GI bleed. in any case, he aspirated when he vomitted last night, i can hear all that crap and fluid in his chest.

because of his brittle diabetes, blindness and kidney disease...keeping wilbur at a reasonable quality of life is difficult. normally he is OK but ok is borderline hugging and he just crossed over that border. he is going to get aspiration pneumonia from last night and with the pnuemonia, his blood sugars are going to spiral out of control, it is inevitable. now i have to decide how far we want to go to try to treat this....honestly? not very far. hospitalization and IV antibiotics and frequent glucose monitering are out of the question. i am not going to do that to a little blind and vulnerable dog who is teetering on the edge. i think we will start him on baytril to minimize the infection as much as we can, start him on some gastric meds in case it is a GI bleed, i will up his insulin a tiny bit to stop that upward spiral and we will see where wilbur wants to go with all of this.

if he is still holding his own by tomorrow and doing reasonably well, i will take him into the clinic for an IV glucose reading and a check over, but he will not be staying there for more invasive therapy alone, blind and afraid...he will be coming home. if we cannot treat him and get him back to where he was from here, then we will cross that bridge when we come to it and i already know what my decision will be.

seven years of loving and caring and worrying for wilbur.....it is a very long time for someone to dig really deep inside your heart.

Comments

Rae

Please give Wilbur and Clyde my love. I hope today is a better day for both of them, and for you too Carol.

Chris T

Not Wilbur!! Please let him get better. Wilbur is my favourite SAINT. I really hope that he is able to come back from this and enjoy life again. Take care little guy!