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By Chris, on August 7, 2004, at 12:28 pm Because one of my coworkers has been in training all week, I’ve been going in to work a half hour earlier, which means getting up earlier and moving faster in order to get all the feeding, medications, and other morning rituals done in time. I hate getting startled by the alarm clock, so much that I tend to somehow rouse myself and ‘clock watch’ about a half an hour before it goes off, turning off the alarm and then opening my eyes every five minutes or so to make sure I’m not oversleeping. Yeah, one of my many nutty compulsive habits but it works for me…
This morning I was just plain whipped. We stayed up a little later than we’d meant to, discussing the Mojo problem (so much going on with him I wouldn’t even know where to start catching up the blog on this) and other things, and my allergies were throwing a fit so I took some benadryl when I went to bed. I’m pretty sure the active ingredient in that medication turns into brain glue, and it usually makes for a sluggish morning, but having an allergy attack makes for a sleepless night so I took the lesser of two evils. As expected, when my ‘internal’ alarm clock woke me up around 5:30 this morning, I really, really felt like crap and wanted nothing more in the world than to just go back to sleep for another couple of hours. I struggled groggily, fading in and out a few times before finally managing to force myself to stumble, bleary-eyed and foggy, and with a bear of a headache brewing, I might add, off to the bathroom to take a shower.
As a dozen things I needed to do at work simultaneously churned through my head, and I kept one ear cocked for the sounds of tail-chasing from Mojo’s crate (which he’s been doing this week every morning when I shower, unfortunately) I wished that I didn’t have to go to work, and thought about how I was glad that Mindy would be back to work on Tuesday and I would be able to go back to my normal routine. I tried to do the mental math of how many more days I would have to go in early.
And then it hit me.
The realization that I was quite possibly the biggest idiot alive right at that moment.
It’s Saturday. I don’t work on Saturdays.
I suck.
By chris, on July 22, 2004, at 8:22 pm 
Clockwise from top: Wednesday, Olive, Simon, and Mojo.
The container they are all starting at holds a rather angry ‘cicada killer’ wasp, which looks like a 2″ hornet. Saved the wasp from the dogs (or vice versa?).
By chris, on June 17, 2004, at 1:33 pm I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed lately and I suppose the lack of posts lately has reflected this. Continuing from June 11th’s post, here’s the latest:
Wednesday is feeling fine now, the vet thought maybe the intense vomiting was brought on by stress but with all the surgeries and boarding she’s undergone because of her bladder issues, never having an episode like this before, we’re a bit skeptical. My paranoid, suspicious side wonders if in the heat of a busy day at the clinic, a vaccine (she has a history of vaccine reactions with symptoms like what she showed) or other medication was inadvertently given to Wednesday. I suppose we will never know, we’re just relieved she is OK. Joy’s big fear that night was that that her bladder had burst along the scar of one of the previous incision sites when they were trying to express it. She’s even better than I am at conjuring up worst-case scenarios.
On to Mojo, who was becoming uncoordinated, stumbling, and collapsing in the midst of vomiting up bile. Several members on the Bull Terrier Neurological Disorders group suggested syncope, or fainting, and one person said that her dog had suffered the same symptoms and the vet diagnosed something called ‘vasovagal syncope’. When I took Mojo to the vet, that is what he diagnosed in Mojo’s case, too. Basically (and I am sure I will garble this explanation terribly) the pressure from the hard abdominal press when he was vomiting stimulated the vagal nerve, causing a sudden drop in blood pressure and brief loss of consciousness. I am guessing because he stopped heaving as he fell each time, this remedied the situation and that is why he didn’t go ‘out’ completely.
Apparently it’s a pretty well-documented quirk, and based on what we’ve seen, the vet did not feel there was any underlying heart condition causing this, he said we should just document it and see if anything else happens. If he started having spells at other times we would want to do an echo cardiogram, even have Mojo wear a monitoring device for 24 hours, but based on just what had happened he didn’t think there was anything to worry about. He did a thorough exam including listening to his heart for a good long time, and everything checked out OK. We will make sure that he gets some sort of midday snack from now on so he doesn’t have an empty tummy for so long. I worry that his medication is a contributing factor to both the syncope and the vomiting, but an attempt this week to try and lower the dosage slightly had very negative results so right now I guess it is just a risk we have to take.
The other furkids are holding up. Lilly is still plugging along same as always, the bloody stool has resolved so it was most likely the different food we had been giving her, setting off her irritable bowel. Olive’s allergies aren’t too bad right now, but Simon has a weird lesion on his nose. Joy has been doing some research and it looks like his nose and eye issues may be due to feline herpes. Lindsy had some sort of spell for a few days where she was really grouchy but she’s feeling better now.
By chris, on June 12, 2004, at 6:39 pm 
Just thought I would share a typical view from the chair in front of the computer at home.
By Chris, on June 11, 2004, at 1:58 pm This past week hasn’t been the greatest. All sorts of chaos at work, Joy’s schedule (if you can call not knowing from week to week when you are working until the last minute a ‘schedule’) has changed again, for the worse of course, and Lilly, Mojo, and Wednesday have all been having health issues.
Wednesday went in for a routine urinalysis recheck, and had to be left overnight to get the sample. We picked her up yesterday evening, they finally had to do a cystocentesis to get the sample, which she’s had done before (this involves drawing the sample directly from the bladder with a sterile syringe and needle inserted through the belly) and she was sent home with another round of antibiotics. On the way home she began puking violently, threw up repeatedly again at home, acted very painful and freaked out, and had diarrhea. We were ready to rush her to the emergency clinic when she finally seemed to feel a bit better, so we decided to watch her instead. This morning she seems back to her old self, we have no idea what was wrong. The only time she has ever acted like that before was the time she had a vaccine reaction but she did not receive any medication or vaccines yesterday. We’re just relieved she’s better.
Lilly is having what seems to be a colitis flareup but we are worried it is something worse. Lots of blood in her stool. Usually with her colitis she vomits and there is more mucus than blood in the stool, this is streaks of frank blood and we’re worried. There was a slight diet change recently, though, so we’ve got her back on what she was eating previously and she’s on a course of metronidazole and we will see what happens. If it isn’t better in a few days we’ll need to have her checked out. Mojo has had two episodes where he had to vomit recently because of an upset stomach, and during the retching he became unsteady and collapsed. He is going to the vet’s today.
When we tried this new vet I knew I was going to have a problem with the ‘walk-ins only policy’ (no scheduled appointments, it is first come first served) but I am getting more than a little frustrated. Feels like we are going to a ‘McVet’ and it sucks because I really have liked the actual Dr. we have seen, but not the way the clinic is run. Experience has taught us that weekday mornings are a bad time to go because there is a big rush of drop-offs and the vets scurrying around trying to see appointments in between setting up for the day’s surgeries. So I figured, since I am off today, I’d go early in the afternoon. Called yesterday to make sure we’d see our vet. When I asked if he was seeing appointments Friday, the recep. says “Oh yeah, i think so” and I said “when in the afternoon would be a good time to come?” and she said “anytime, we don’t close for lunch.” So today, just to make absolutely sure everything is a go (we’ve been turned away two different times when we’ve gone, because they had too many people already waiting) I call, ask if Dr — is seeing appointments today, and she says “yes, but he is at lunch right now.” and told me to come after 2pm. I resisted the urge to eat my phone. She couldn’t tell me that yesterday why??? I really would like for Mojo to see that Dr. so I’m trying to be patient, but that is just a crazy way to run a clinic.
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