Rescue Journal

blast from the past

Carol  ·  Dec. 5, 2012

while i am sad that grandpa has passed away..honestly?..part of me is relieved not to have to deal with settling a new animal in here right now. i do feel stretched pretty thin lately. i totally forgot last pm that sam and leah were gone..i trucked out to the shop to settle them for bed and suddenly remembered as i walked in the door.
i too am a ceature of habit.

i forgot to tell you guys, i had a phone call the other day about theya. she is doing so well and they just love her to bits. of course who wouldn't? little miss sunshine...theya is such a happy and cheerful girl.

i ran into Dr. Patrelli in the feed store the other day and she is going to come and work on the neurogenic bladder dogs....daphne, max and chance. she uses traditional medicine, homeopathy, herbal medicine and accupuncture...she is actually pretty damn close to brilliant. we used to use her a lot in the beginning and then i just got too busy and overwhelmed here and slowly slid back to the faster and easier traditional medicine only routine. far easier to just drop them off at a clinic and pick them up later with an RX for a medication i knew and understood..less stretching of my brain.

anyway..it was providence that i ran into her because i have been really worried about daphne. her last urine C&S showed she was growing bacteria that is resistent to all antibiotics except for one...(which she is currently on.) my fear is if she develops a resistence to this antibiotic...she could at some point get really sick, turn septic and die without any meds left to try. so the plan is with accupuncture and maybe some supportive alternative meds..maybe some real function can be restored to the neurogenic bladder dogs and prevent a life threatening crises from developing down the road.

i am also thinking i should ask her to do some accupuncture on czar..he is having a terrible time during back hoof trimmings due to arthritis in both hips.


i think i have become more passive about their health care over the past several years. i think i have gotten busy, tired and overwhelmed and therefore more accepting of what currently is. i sort of lost that whole proactive approach..the thinking ahead bit instead of just reacting in all of this.

why did i not call her to help pops??? i remember thinking i should and then couldn't find her number and then the thought just up and disappeared. how did i let that happen? i think i had too many different vets involved and got confused by it all and then suddenly it was too late for him.

sucks to look at things in retrospect and feel you may have made omission mistakes.

Comments

Curt

I agree with everyones comments here. No need to beat yourself up about past or present decisions.

Leila

I think the non traditional methods are great, especially for bein proactive but the do not stop the inevitable with a pallative care animal any more than traditonal does so stop beating yourself over the head Carol. Just stop it.

Mo

What a wonderful treat to read about Theya, she was such a sweet dog & fortunatley the vets reached out to SAINTS when her people were about to let her down for the very last time. I bet she has all her hair again ..

Yea for Dr Patrelli !!!

shelagh f

I think you are in crisis management. With working so
much and that affecting your health, because of working
so much, you do not have the luxury of standing back
and examining the big, long range picture. If you
could clone yourself, I think you could manage it all
exactly the way you envision. I think you need to
realize you are only one person, you have lots of help
but you are the brains of the outfit. In a perfect
world, the animals wouldn't be at Saints in the first
place, so I think you do very well.

Maggie

Carol we all look back on decisions we made and second guess ourselves. The thing to always keep in mind is we did the best we possibly could at the time.
An update on Sam and Lea: Sam is beyond thrilled and can't stop wagging his tail. Leah had a restless night and finally ended up sleeping on the rug at the end of my bed. I think it is just going to take her a few days to adjust to a different environment.
Today is our first full day and started with an early walk to the end of the driveway for the papers. We will get into a regular schedule which I think is Lea's comfort zone.