Feeling Brave-ish 16 Months into Our Canine Brain Saga

 It’s official. I’ve fallen out of the habit of blogging. It’s complicated. Today, for example, my plans to finish work early so that I could clean my house (which is getting scary) got slaughtered by imminent, unexpected work demands from 3 different clients. Since it looks like I’ll be cleaning all evening, I’m trying to make some space in my brain to write a real update about Lilly. Let’s see how it goes.

Dog Neurological Troubles

When last we spoke about our now 16-month-long saga with Lilly’s forever-changed brain (due to an adverse rabies vaccine reaction), Lilly was coming off of a relapse that began April 7. We narrowly averted it being a bad one.

Since then, we’ve given Lilly high doses of daily steroids and a total of 3 cycles of cytarabine injections (including the one I mentioned in our last real update post).

Ongoing Canine Bladder Wars

I’m happy to share that Lilly successfully fought of a meds-resistant bladder infection thanks to a super-scary antibiotic, but the follow-up urine culture done April 29 grew enterococcus species bacteria — which causes about 13% of canine bladder infections.

That’s the third straight bladder infection and the third different bacteria we’ve battled.

Much like the original e coli infection, enterococcus is something all of us have. Lilly’s has simply gotten out of control because we’re suppressing her immune system so much. The steroids, in particular, make her super susceptible to bladder infections.

On the upside, this bacteria is sensitive to plain old ammoxicillan, so we’ll do 24 days of that and see where we are. Constant bladder infections, I fear, have become our new “normal.”

Feeling Brave-ish

Lilly still doesn’t seem quite right sometimes, but she is as stable as we’ve seen so far in 2013. She still gets tired and wobbly / weak in the rear — especially if I let her play too much or walk too far (not far at all). She still seems “off” at times, but she can stand and walk and play and loves to eat and poke around outside (as weather allows).

So, last night, in consultation via email with our veterinary neurologist, we’ve decided to cut her steroid dose in half — down to 1 mg dexamethasone once a day.

She had been getting 2 mg daily for a month now. However, she is starting to show steroid effects, including:

• Muscle loss (especially in her head and rear legs) a look known as “pred head”
• Increased belly bloating (fatty liver, weak ab muscles, etc.)
• Ongoing urge to eat non-food items (if not properly supervised)

Hence the decision to see if we can wean her back a bit. Fingers crossed.

Life at Chez Lilly

My workload has been absurd in recent weeks. Last week, I made an unexpected dash to North Carolina for a big new project. I was on the ground there just 26 hours total. It was a real challenge because Lilly had chemo last week too. By the time I got home from the airport at 1 am (on day 12 of a nonstop work sprint), I’d been up 22 hours.

I did take the weekend “off,” but I’ve been working LATE every night this week to catch up after being gone.

We haven’t had much time to do more than simply meet Lilly’s at-home care needs lately, but I hope things settle down soon.

She did have 10 glorious days without any pee accidents during treatment for her MRSA infection, but it didn’t last. We’re quickly approaching 1 full year of total incontinence (both ways), and I’ve pretty much given up any expectation that we can ever truly change that reality.

So, I keep changing diapers, doing my best to keep her clean, and washing a lot of laundry … all day, every day.

On My Mind

I have a lot about Lilly’s past and future on my mind. I hope in the coming weeks to share a bit of what I’m thinking and feeling.

FAR too many of our friends have lost their dogs in recent weeks, so I have a bit of “survivor’s guilt” that Lilly and I remain in the fight.

I know all of you wonder about us, especially those who miss our updates on the Champion of My Heart Facebook fan page.

As proof that our girl — who will be 9 years old next week — is doing OK, here are a couple of pix from the last month.