Tuesday 7 February 2017

Diagnosis and treatment

We have a plan for Missy's treatment with the vet. Her kidneys aren't working as they should, they aren't processing protein very well. She's going onto a heart tablet which will increase the blood flow to the kidneys to help them be more efficient. Hopefully that will improve her appetite. She's also going onto a special diet food (if we can get her to eat it) to ease the load on her kidneys.

She's coming off the propalin syrup which she has been taking since the summer for occasional incontinence. The increased blood flow will help with that too but if it doesn't, it's easily managed with protective bedding and lots of washing machine action. I don't mind that in the slightest.

We lost our previous dog, Guinness, to kidney disease. After diagnosis, we had him with us for another five months with a reasonable quality of life. Treatments and diets are better now than they were in Guinness's day. There is another urine test we could do to tell us how advanced the disease is but with her present symptoms, that wouldn't affect her treatment so we've decided we'd rather not know.

Those are the practicalities, MTM will pick up the tablets and new food today. I can write this in a matter of fact manner but underneath, everyone who has ever loved and lost a much loved pet will know exactly how we are feeling right now.

She has good days and we will be making the most of them with her for as long as we can.

5 comments:

  1. My thoughts are with you all at this very hard time sue, hopefully onwards and upwards for a good while yet xx

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  2. We went through this last year - every day with your dog is a gift, I hope you have many, many of them. x

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    1. Thanks Caroline. Clovis was fortunate to have you nursing him. I feel privileged to be doing it for Missy. To get her eating this morning, I tried her with a couple of thin slices if Sainsbury's sausage roll. After she gets started, she will eat quite a bit of her special diet food with me hand feeding. This morning though, she turned her nose up at the Sainsbury's one, but she was very pleased to have the artisan, award winning sausage roll from Ancaster Butchers. I obviously have to eat the rest ... there goes the diet!

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    2. We got through an awful lot of Swedish meatballs last year! And a fair amount of fried sausages...

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