4.03.2006

Best laid plans

I had planned on working from home last Thursday. I am lucky enough to be able to do that every once in a while. We had the kid's party that night, and the schedule only really worked out if I was home early. On Friday, the plan was to go to the Field Museum, taking the kids on a quick train ride on the way.

So we wake up on Thursday, and Shelby - our 14 year old 80 pound German Shephard\Greyhound mix (guessing) couldn't move her hind legs. A couple nights earlier, she wouldn't come upstairs with us at bedtime. So I carried her. When she couldn't move, I figured the end was near.

I recalled Wylie, our first pet to die. Wylie was the healthy cat, right up until the end. He got sick when DearWife was 8 months pregnant and .... emotional. 3 days and several potential car payments later, we had to have him put down.

We got an appointment with the vet, who gave the speech I was expecting. "Without doing lots of expensive tests that probably won't tell us anything, I have no idea what to expect. It's your decision. But here's some drugs to try."

So we tried the steroids that night. Didn't really help much right away. We did make it to the kids party. And all had a good time. But that night over the monitor, when he wasn't coughing, we could hear LittleBrother's breathing over his white noise maker. DearWife ended up sleeping half the night in his room because she was afraid he would have trouble breathing.

The Field Museum was out. The good news was that Shelby had a near miraculous recovery on the Barry Bonds juice. The only problem was that she drinks more than Tom Sizemore on a bender. So she goes outside every 10 minutes. Small price.

After celebrating Shelby's recovery for 2 minutes, we made a doctor's appointment for LittleBrother. The doctor examined him, and listened to his lungs, and weighed and measured him and generally irritated the piss out of him. At the end of it the doc said:
"It's the croup."
My first thought was "Holy crap. It's a named disease. You don't name things like colds, you name things like Parkinson's and the Black Plague and .... my thought was interrupted when she said

"it should go away in a couple days. It's really no big deal."

And she was right. So it wasn't as much fun as we had hoped, but everything is turning out well.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

we have an almost 15 yr old cat - this should be good for a pre-teen drama for sure

so glad to hear Shelby is OK

AND Little Brother too, of course - I hate those nights when you KNOW it is all OK, BUT just in case you sit by their side all night until the fever breaks or the cough/breathing difficulty subsides

that part doesn't go away - was there myself just a month ago with Elle

Anonymous said...

it's the cold on the floor that makes me ache - I finally gave up and either crawl in (DH #1 has a full size) or take one back to bed with me and send DH to their bed ;)

Elle has been worried about Bebe ever since she heard the vet say "13 yr life expectancy" - luckily she can "hear" the animals talk so she generally knows how the cat is feeling