After raving last time about how much I love my pets, is it totally inconsistent to now tell you how fed up I am with them? Especially Bandit?
I'm not sure I've blogged much about this, but a few months ago, Bandit started having what we thought were seizures. It was a Fri night, some friends were over for dinner and all of a sudden she started falling to the floor, wetting herself, and shaking a little. I think the first time might have been earlier in the afternoon, but I didn't realize that there had been anything wrong until hours later when she did it again. That first time, i just heard a clattering as I was getting out of the shower and came running out to find the water bowl knocked over and Bandit on the floor. I assumed she had walked into it as she's getting clumsy in her old age and just helped her up and threw a large towel over the carpet.
The second time that it happened, G just found a large wet spot after he came home and we couldn't figure out who had done it. It was while we were dogsitting my brother's dog and all 4 had been rushing him when he came home from work. About an hour later, our friend saw Bandit having some sort of weird convulsion in the kitchen. She fell and wet herself. It was then that we started wondering about the previous episodes. G mentioned that actually, when he had picked up the wet towel from the water bowl incident, he thought he had smelled pee but hadn't been sure. And then, a final time while we were eating dinner, Bandit did it again. We freaked out, left our guests to fend for themselves, loaded up the baby, Bandit, and Porter (because he had been barking at the guests a lot and we figured he'd be happier with us in the car) and headed over to the emergency vet in Capitola. It happens to be where Bandit's specialist is for her Cushing's. By this point, it was about 10 pm on Fri night, so you can see how exciting our weekends can be.
They wanted us to leave Bandit overnight for observation and start her on anti-convulsant medication. I expressed some concern about the effects of these medications on such an old dog (because the vet mentioned how powerful they were and how some dogs had difficulty adjusting). To be honest, I was less than thrilled with the vet overall, I'm pretty sure he spent his downtime surfing and doing dope (this is Santa Cruz after all). But whatever, Google told us how serious 4 seizures in a 24-hour period can be, so we were ready to do whatever needed to be done.
Early next morning, the vet called us as he was finishing his shift. He apparently had had 2nd thoughts about the anti-seizure medication and had decided to leave Bandit be and just observe her. He said that he had been prepared to give her the meds if she had another seizure, but he had been thinking more about our concerns and thought waiting might be more appropriate. Later that morning, our regular specialist happened to be in and had also examined Bandit. The rest of the day passed without incident, so we came back to take Bandit home and scheduled a follow up visit with her vet a few days later.
Our vet wasn't convinced that Bandit had had seizures at all. Rather, she suspected (and still does) a heart issue. She thinks that Bandit has mitral valve regurgitation which causes her heart to work extremely hard. Or something like that. Anyway, she thinks that Bandit had lost consciousness for brief periods, and those were the moments when she fell over and peed herself. Further testing revealed that she was probably right, so we started her on heart medication.
Except that the next week or so ended up being the worst time ever. Bandit stopped eating and became so weak that she couldn't move. We were picking her up and taking her out to pee. Based on the vet's suggestion, I went out and bought her a bunch of baby food and we'd spend forever trying to coax bites into her with little success. We were supposed to go to Oregon for a weekend, and we were so scared of leaving her that G stayed behind while I took the baby up on my own (her first flight!). We were prepared to call our local vet to see if he'd come over to our house when the moment came.
And then suddenly, after 3 days of not eating, Bandit expressed some interest in my mac n' cheese one afternoon, so I gave her a bunch. G came home and fed her a bunch of peanut butter filled pretzels and she wolfed them down, along with a ton of water. That afternoon seemed to be the turn around. The vet had already taken her off the heart medication and also suggested that we could try giving her steroids if we wanted. She warned us though that putting her on steroids was unlikely to help in the long run. It was just that she was concerned that Bandit's issues might also involve swelling in her brain due to her Cushing's which the steroids could help temporarily. Bandit seemed to regain her appetite before we started the steroids, but she's been on them since, so it's hard to say if she improved because of them or not.
All of this happened about 3 months ago. Since then, she's continued to receive a low dose of steroids every day. Before we moved, she was mostly getting up by herself and letting herself out the dog door. She's been a bit of a medical mystery in that she doesn't really respond to her Cushing's medication and she didn't really respond to the heart medication either. But as far as we can tell, she hasn't had any more "seizure-like" incidents. She's been completely off her Cushing's meds now for months and her appetite has been ridiculous (i.e. she's eating her own poop again). Her vet wondered about brain issues stemming from her Cushing's but back then, her neurological exams were pretty normal.
These days, I'm a little less sure. Since we've moved to the new house, she's been struggling to get up on the hardwood floors. If we leave her for even a few hours, we come home to find a puddle of pee or poop on the floor. What's especially awesome is that since she can't get up, we've found her sitting in her own pee on several occasions. She seems constantly thirsty. And finally, nowadays, I wonder how aware she is of her surroundings. I mean, she knows us and all that. But I see her staggering at times. I've caught her running into the patio door when it was closed. She seems more disoriented.
Now that I'm writing all this, I feel sad. But this is where the being fed up part comes in too. I know, you were starting to wonder where all this was going, weren't you? I hate to say it, but more and more, I'm a little over it. The constant cleaning up -- the other night, G stepped on a puddle without realizing it and got pee all over his socks and jeans. We had guests over and he had been in the process of changing the baby's diaper when it happened So that was fun. He and the kid were essentially stuck in one spot until I could clean up and get him a change of clothes.
This morning, she got me up at 8 when I heard her struggling to get up on the hardwood. When I let her out, the other two dogs decided to head out too. Except that it takes her 3x as long as it does the others, so while I was helping her down the hallway, Tucker pitter-pattered up and down it multiple times, and what do you know, I see on the baby monitor that the kid is getting up too with all the ruckus. We finally got outside and it turned out that Bandit didn't need to go out at all! She just stood there staring blankly at nothing. And I know what you're thinking, dude, it's 8 already, what are you complaining about. Yeah, but I had already been up at 5 with my early-to-bed-early-to-rise kid and G had let everyone out when he got up to get ready for work at around 6:15. I was still half awake when he took off for work, so yeah, being up at 8 wasn't exactly my plan for the morning.
When Bandit leaves messes, the other two sometimes step on it and leave little pee prints all over the floor, so the clean up involved can get extensive. If we leave her outside too long, she wanders the yard and starts eating poop. We've thought about leaving her in the garage, but it's still pretty messy from the move, and one thing we discovered while moving is that if there's a way to get stuck in a pile of crap, Bandit finds it. She's been constantly knocking stuff over and getting stuck between boxes and furniture.
We can't walk with her because she can't keep up for even a block. But it's hard to leave her because she looks so sad.
So I'm sorry to say it, but I'm fed up. Three months ago, I was preparing myself for the worst. And now I hate myself, but I'm not sure how much longer I can take this. I find myself getting impatient with her, and it makes me feel terrible. I kind of feel like I'm watching a movie that used to be awesome but now just won't end no matter no painful and repetitive it's getting. What does this say about me? How would I deal if my child or husband ever got really sick if I can barely handle a few months of doggie old age.
