March 9 updates - post vet visit

Originally posted by Jim on Hawksbill Cabin, March 2009

It’s been a while since I’ve given status on Gracie’s chronic renal failure. She was diagnosed as being in final stage about six months ago, but the symptoms have only been noticeable the last two or three months, since January. Mainly, there is noticeable weight loss and she is losing strength – she can’t jump into the car herself anymore, and it takes a long time to climb stairs, for example. 

Food boycotting has been particularly troubling. She just won’t eat anything, it seems, having gone off her regular diet a few months back. Mary has even tried preparing meals for her using diets found on-line. Gracie would generally try these, but wouldn’t come back to a second meal.

Last week, Gracie lost about four pounds overall. She stopped drinking water, and wasn’t getting any fluids from her food since she wasn’t eating. Mary asked about it during a check up for our other dog Sofie, and the vet told her to bring Gracie in.

We did, and after diagnostics, they decided she was in a close to dangerous situation. We checked her in for the weekend, where they rehydrated her, and conducted additional diagnostics for possible kidney damage, calcium deposits, or tumors. Nothing there, the kidney failure is a chronic condition, simply because of old age – Gracie is 14 years old (Sofie is older).

Despite the gravity of her condition, you could still wave any toy in front of her and she’d be interested – rising to play, pouncing on the ball. She’s a trooper and there is strong Border Collie instinct here.  From this, Mary and I conclude that her time hasn’t come yet, and we decide that it is worthwhile – financially and from a quality of life perspective – to continue with the treatments recommended by the vet.

We checked her out of the hospital last night, and on the positive side, she is in high spirits.  They got her to eat baby food, with chicken, so we’re trying that.  However, there are new prescriptions and we’re going to have to do subcutaneous injections of fluids starting today (see photo).

Along with all of this news, it’s clear we are in the final stages. We are not sure how long we’ll have her with us at this point. So we’ll enjoy the time we have, as it comes.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Diet, Sofie, The Diary, Vet Visits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.