inevitability of life

Unfortunately, but not a surprise, Doris has lung cancer. She is home from the vet. We will keep her as comfortable as possible for as long as she has left.

Doris

Things are not looking good for Doris Katz now. The mystery ailment seems to only be getting worse. Shes down to liquids only in her diet, which for the moment means water and milk. I'm thinking of thinning some food into liquid or feeding her low-sodium chicken broth also. She does not seem to be in pain, so that's a mercy. She sleeps all day now, only getting up to drink a bit and say hello when we come home in the afternoon. Our local veterinarian seems to strongly believe that, at her probable age, she has cancer somewhere. With the eye out, one might guess it is already in her brain so I see not treatment option if that is what we're dealing with. But we don't really know for certain, so I have made an appointment for her with a specialist in Decatur. The soonest they could see her is Tuesday morning. Hopefully, she will get through the weekend okay on liquids. Then we might be closer to knowing what, if anything, to do for her.

She pooped.

No work today. No job leads either, so things were pretty quiet here at el Rancho, except for the ongoing health issues with our senior room mate, Doris Katz. She is still on antibiotics for the eye thing of mysterious origin that has her white blood cell count very high. She had not pooped for two days but was till eating until last night. Today we could not even get her to choke down her pill, so I took her in to the vet again. It was nearly time for her first follow-up on the mystery illness anyway, so they took a new blood sample - just a small one since she's a bit anemic of late- and checked her vitals. Still no fever. Blood pressure is normal. The doctor tells me that digestive issues are not a normal side effect of the medication she's on so this is something new.
Good news is that she was so scared, with all the jostling around and prodding at the veterinary office, she finally pooped there on the office floor. We were all relieved that problem is, for the moment, not an issue. She is still not eating tonight. I gave her a bit of soft food that made her gag but she did choke down a few bites.

Tonight, MonsterMustDie and I went out to dinner with a group of good friends to Young Augustine's. Very good meal, as usual. We started with an order of duck fries for the table. I had the enormous plate of fish and chips. Kisa Bastet's hubby had to help me finish the plate - I did not want to take leftover fish home since it probably would not make very good leftovers by the morning. MonsterMustDie ahd the carnita & kimchee tacos. Gilli had the brussel sprouts, which was another generous plate and looked delicious. Kisa had the shrimp-scallion pancakes and her hubby had the pork belly sliders. Kel had the short rib grilled cheese sandwich. Other people's selections are rapidly disappearing from memory now. Time to shut down and call it a night.

more on the ill and bothered

The aching old Dutch man came home early today with his aching back, ready to stretch out on a heating pad and be as immobile as possible. Doris' vet phoned shortly after he got home and said that, although her other tests came out normal, her white count was extremely high on her blood test and they wanted to make an x-ray soon. I took her in immediately for two x-rays and more tests. They gave her fluids, an injection of antibiotics, and more or the oral antibiotics to be given daily at home for two weeks. If nothing else is wrong with her, I'll take her back on Wednesday for a re-check. Hopefully the antibiotics will help whatever is going on inside her. They found no masses (no obvious cancer) on her x-ray.
Tonight, is the second of the photo classes I signed up for. As much as I don't want to go now, it's paid for so I guess I should give it one more shot. I feel it's just a lousy waste of time, unfortunately, but maybe tonight will be better.

Eating a quick dinner of dumplings now while MonsterMustDie is watching a Godzilla movie on DVD.

limping Doris

Doris Kat was limping around alot last night. Looks like she's injured one of her back legs somehow. I took her in to the vet this morning. Turns out she has a torn ligament on her back right knee. It may have been this way for a long time (kinda explains her wonky hind quarters) and has just gotten a bit worse recently from a new injury, age, etc.

They could possibly repair the joint surgically, but with her age and asthma, the vet does not recommend that option.

The vet is still very much concerned that we still give Doris steroids for her asthma and has suggested, if we can get her to take it, an apparatus that would enable her to be given her meds with an inhaler. This would send the steroids directly to her lungs and enable smaller, less harmful, doses. I don't know if we could really get her to hold still long enough to hold a mask to her face for around 8 breaths but it's under discussion.