Sometimes things happen so slowly, you don't even realize it's happening. For a couple of weeks, Jake had been getting slower and slower. We blamed the heat. I mean, it's been in the upper 90's with a few 100's thrown in there. It's hot! We all slow down when it gets that hot. But, even when it's hot, Jake will still perk up when he's in the nice air conditioning. And that's when we started to notice that things weren't quite right with Jake.
Every evening, rain or shine, Jake will sit and stare until one of us gives in to the gaze and takes him for a walk. And if we aren't quick enough, he'll start whining. I can handle lots of things. I work in a preschool. I'm used to yelling, crying, complaining, etc. But I don't handle whining. And Jake has figured that out. So he gets a walk every evening. Then, he will come home from his walk and get his rope or Blast (a stuffed dog that Abigail named Blast Hardcheese) and start running around the sofa with it just to go ahead and get that extra bit of energy out.
Another thing he always does is meet us at the door when we come home. I don't know how he does it but sometimes when we drive up, we see him looking out the window, like he heard us coming. He's always so happy to see us. Who doesn't love coming home to that?
And then over the course of a week, it just stopped. He quit whining to go for a walk. He quit playing with his toys. He quit meeting us at the door. Finally one day I actually had to go look for him when I got home. He was upstairs, asleep behind the recliner. He just didn't have the energy to go downstairs to greet us. The other thing we noticed was how he would sit and stare at us but close his eyes and start falling asleep. While sitting up! That was it. Time to take him to see his Wonderful Vet.
I drove him to the vet and instead of being happy that he was going for a car ride, he just sat there with his head hanging. The vet checked him out and noticed he was anemic but his lungs and heart sounded clear. I was afraid of heartworms, courtesy of Channel 2 doing a story about dogs getting heartworms even when they're on preventative medicine. Anyway, Wonderful Vet checked everything and poked Jake in places he didn't appreciate and then took some blood and said we would find out the results the next day. After we got in the car to come home, I saw a side of Jake that I rarely see...he was mad! He got up in the passenger seat of the van and sat, facing forward the whole way home. Not looking out the window, not looking at me when I talked to him or patted his head. He just looked straight ahead. When we got home, instead of jumping off the seat and getting out on my side of the van, he just sat there, looking straight ahead. I walked around to his side of the van, opened the door, and again, without looking at me, he jumped down. He came in the house and went straight upstairs for the next 3 hours.
Stress is a funny thing. Sometimes I handle it, sometimes I don't. This time I didn't. When I got home, I prayed, I cried, I asked people on Facebook to pray, I prayed some more, and I hugged Jake until he would have growled and snapped at me if he had the energy.
The next day, with my stomach in a huge knot, I called the office for the results. Basically it could be 1 of 2 things. He either got into something toxic or he has some type of auto immune disorder. Suddenly, I'm really hoping Jake ate something toxic since that would be the easiest to treat. I mean, come on. This is the dog that ate a razor blade one time. I wrote a whole post on this blog just about things that he has eaten. The treatment for either one of these is sort of the same. (there are lots more details that I understood at the time WV was explaining it to me, but now...not so much) So I took him back that morning and he got 3 shots (an antibiotic, a steroid and a B12) and 2 bottles of pills (antibiotic and steroid) and a bottle of liquid stuff that WV called "doggie Geritol". He also gave me 2 cans of prescription dog food made especially for diabetic dogs or dogs having GI trouble and I was to give him a tablespoon of that every hour just to keep something going through his tummy. Again, on the way home, Jake was mad. This time, instead of looking straight out of the window, at one point he actually stood up, turned to the side and faced the side window. He rode home with his back to me the whole time! Anyway, this was on Friday and WV said we should see a slight improvement by Saturday and he wanted me to call and report. Have I mentioned that Wonderful Vet is the best vet around? By Saturday morning, Jake was a little perkier. I was cautiously optimistic. Later in the morning, he did the familiar "sit and stare" until I told him I would take him for a walk. He came home, grabbed his toy and ran around the sofa! I was so excited! I called WV's office and told them what was going on. However, I was also told, this doesn't mean he doesn't have the autoimmune thing. But if he does, at least we know the treatment would work. Again, there are many more details than I'm giving you but my brain is tired.
But then Saturday night, it happened. Abigail and I went somewhere and when we drove up to the house I looked, and there was Jake, standing in the window! Even from the street, I could see him wagging his tail. I almost cried, I was so happy.
So, Jake seems to be on the mend for now. He still doesn't have his energy back all the way but as I write this, Jake is at the front window, watching the neighborhood and wagging his tail. Say a little prayer for him if you don't mind and I'll keep you posted......
No comments:
Post a Comment