A Roller Coaster Week!

Bacchus agrees. What a week! As you know, last Friday we were at WSU to have the "reveal" implant. The cardiologist also made some dosage changes and sent us home with possible side effects to watch for. He was pretty dopey from the sedation through Saturday. Monday I took him to our vet to have his BP checked and all seemed well.

Then came the red flags. His eating ground to a halt and his respiration increased to the point by Wednesday night he sounded like a freight train. He quit drinking water and wouldn't lay down. I was sure we had lost him by 3:00 a.m. It had gotten suddenly and totally quiet. Hub and I got up and began looking for him. He was nowhere to be found. "What the..."

The game room upstairs? I didn't think he'd have been able to climb the stairs but there he was sound asleep. He finally stirred enough to go outside but the freight train was still with him. Hub was on the phone to the cardiologist; a chest x-ray was ordered and off we went to our vet. The fluid had begun to refill his chest. We could hear the phone conversation between our vet and the cardiologist. The idea of driving him to WSU in a snow storm to put him on an IV to stabilize his blood pressure was out of the question. So they agreed to increase the diuretic and reduce the one that was raised Friday to it's previous level.

By evening his respiration had returned to it's previous level. Our vet called to check his progress and asked I bring him in the morning to recheck the BP. He started drinking water, spit his pills out of the hot dogs then ate the hot dogs. Well, that's my boy. He was definitely feeling better.

I was laughing when we got to the vet. He headed straight to his usual exam room without hesitation. He didn't even quiver when the vet came in and scratched his ears. "What's this?" she asked. "I think, resignation. If you can't beat 'em join 'em!"

His breathing was much improved, his BP back in an acceptable range. He ate a smidgen of lunch, is drinking water as he should and is enjoying a fairly nice day eating snow and viewing his world from his favorite snow banks.

He's still scheduled to have his stitches out Tuesday. Hub says we're going to quit fooling with the meds. His system has to get used to what they are doing to it. One more day. We've made it over a month with only one really bad scare. That we had it is not good; that we were able to counter act it is.

I love our vet. She not only knows how to handle Bacchus, she knows how to handle me. And that is no easy task!