Lolly-Gagging and Librivox

WOW!  Exactly 7 weeks since my last post.  I haven't exactly been lolly-gagging, just musing, coasting, groping my way, "seeing through a glass darkly".  After watching Maxie's agility performance deteriorate these past 8 months or so (poorer times, skipping the weaves), and observing his erratic behavior at home (skulking off into other rooms and hiding in corners to sleep), I have known something is wrong.  I took him to the doggie chiropractor who said several things were out of place but she said she put them back and gave me the green light to continue performing, with the admonition not to let him jump off the king-size bed any more!

But I lolly-gagged in getting him checked out further.  Plenty of other things intervened.  Finally I had to bring FoohFooh in with an infected toenail and bad limp, so Maxie came along, got some bloodwork done and a general checkup.  I found out he has inflamed gums and a few loose teeth, and perhaps a few compressed disks!  I scheduled a tooth cleaning for the next day. They ended up keeping him overnight because during the cleaning, 8 teeth fell out and they had to pull 8 more.  Little 7 lb. Maxie was on a morphine drip overnight, and lost 16 teeth!  I was absolutely sick.  Also, they put him on some liver meds to see if his numbers there might clear up in a month or so, otherwise they will have to do more!  And he's going back to the chiropractor this weekend, since one will be at our trial.

This has taken the wind out my sails.  I didn't realize how much I feed on Maxie's enthusiasm.  His comportment has always been "teach me something, Mommy, teach me something NOW!".  Most of the time nowadays,  he's just content to rest or look at me. He still runs, plays and eats well, but not with the same intensity.

Of course, there is still Lucky Lucy, always wanting to tug and retrieve, go for walks, etc.  Depending upon me so much for her entertainment.  I throw the ball for her and she stays in shape leaping over the 30" fence several times a day to retrieve her ball.  (Retrieving is great when the dog brings you back the ball -- all you have to do is stand there!)  But it's not enough.  She needs more.

And then there is Pepper.    What a sweetheart, but I'm not sure I can go the distance to train him as an agility dog.  He does all the full height equipment, and we play around, but he just doesn't get the sequencing.  He loves to tug, and to chase the ball, too, but doesn't bring it back.  And, he doesn't beg to be trained like the other two.  It is not imperative to me, I'm realizing, to have a third agility dog.

And then, my vegetable garden has kept me occupied, plus making jellies and pickles.  I'm working on a single post that will cover the entire season's harvest in pictures. Here's one day's worth.  Isn't it beautiful?

And then I've discovered how much I love to record audio books.  That sucks up a lot of my time, but it's so fascinating.  In honor of my deceased father, an avid sailor and seaman, who treasured Moby Dick, Treasure Island, and all the old sea adventure books, I'm solo recording Jules Verne's  Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea for Librivox.  It is a HUGE project, a real challenge, and I'm only half-way through!  It will probably take me through December to complete it.  I also record short stories and segments for several of Librivox's collaborative projects.  What fun, to record, also to listen.  I stream free audio books on my iPhone (through iTunes) almost every night, while driving, in the dentist's chair, etc.  So does John.  I can listen while washing dishes, sweeping, weeding the garden, etc. FREE Librivox audio books have supplanted Netflix as our entertainment of choice!  We are having a blast catching up on all the classic literature we never found time to read in our long working careers. 

For my dog loving friends, here's a wonderful Librivox recording I listened to recently, Jack London's White Fang.  Man, what a dog story! You can download it to your computer, or to iTunes then stream or download to your iPhone, iPad, or mp3 player.  Best of all, it's free!

In any case, this weekend is our local dog club's agility trial and both Maxie and Lucky Lucy are entered.  With little practice under our belts due to heat and so many rainouts, we'll just go and see how we do.  I'm feeling very relaxed and comfortable about it, no matter what the outcome.  But I wouldn't mind a few Q's!

Upwards and onward!

Nathan's Gall Bladder Surgery



L to R:  Michele, Nathan, Allison
Those hospital gowns make you look
sick even if you're feeling fine.

Yesterday Nathan had his gall bladder removed with a minimally invasive technique called the DiVinci Robot.  Only a few surgeons in Baton Rouge are trained on this procedure.  They only make one incision thru the belly button, inflate the abdominal cavity with gas so there's plenty of room to operate, and send minute robot hands in through the navel to cut the gall bladder away from the liver, clamp off the arteries, and remove the sac out through the navel.  The whole procedure is visible to the surgeon through a lighted camera that goes in there too, and he watches a screen and manipulates the arms from a booth.  For those who aren't too squeemish, there's a YouTube video of the equipment and procedure here.  It's wonderful to know that somebody out there is really thinking and working hard to invent better medical procedures.

Typical surgery takes about an hour, 3-4 hours to sleep off the anesthesia and fight off nausea, and you go home same day with a few stitches and a skin patch over your navel.  They say you can return to work in a few days. Swim, play golf, run in a week.

Nathan fasted overnight.  Allison brought him to OLOL for 8 a.m., a reasonable hour. I arrived around 8:45. We hung around the prep room where they put him in hospital gown, laid him in a gurney, he signed a million forms, they poked his arm with an introvenous needle, took his blood pressure and temp several times, scanned his armband barcode, and answered his questions--his main and oft repeated question being "Can I get a video of the procedure?"  And in the end, he got one.



Nathan and me.
They make him leave recovery
in a wheel chair.

Allison HAD to depart for work at 9, so when Nathan went in for surgery at 10, I began texting her updates every time I got one.  While he slept it off in recovery, I poked around the gift shop and found him a cool helium balloon with an aquarium theme that says

"Get Better Soon"

And I mean it.  It's totally weird to see your tall, healthy, atheletic son in a hospital gown and then a wheel chair.  Made my stomach do several flips.



Allison picks Nathan up at the parking garage.

Allison got off in time to take him home around 4:30.  Total of 8.5 hours at the hospital. The aide wheeled him to the 2nd floor parking garage, where his chariot awaited.


I headed to Walgreens near OLOL Hospital to fill his prescriptions.  Man, I can't believe this Walgreens is so incompetent.  Located right at the exit to the hospital, they had long lines of cars at the drive up window and people inside wanting prescriptions filled, but they only had one active pharmacist, one aide typing in data, and an aide in training doing something with the other pharmacist, who was also on the phone.  And they are all back there joking around, hardly making eye contact with the customers. They said mine would fill in 30 minutes, but oops they never got around to typing in my info, so I had to wait another 30 minutes to get just 1 prescription filled. What poor business practices!

Nathan felt nauseus that whole evening but ate some pasta, and by next morning the nausea went away.  His biggest complaint -- a feeling of extreme dehydration and like he'd been punched in the stomach with a jack hammer!  And his throat hurt so he didn't feel like talking. They advised him to walk and move around to dispell the gas, not lay up in bed all day, prescribed an over the counter stool softener just in case, Gasex, Lortab for pain as needed or if he preferred, Extra Strength Tylenol.  He is able to eat normally.

By the way, Nathan had no gall stones.  The procedure was necessary because of a bile duct that had been malfunctioning for years and not expelling enough bile.  I believe he attributed this to eating too much rich food for too many years.  In the last 3 months, based on the incredible Forks Over Knives documentary and other sources, he's eliminated all animal products from his diet, has lost 25 lbs, and feels better than ever. He's learned to substitute other things for meat, such as the usual grains and beans, flax seed powder instead of egg as a binding agent, no-chicken boullion, Tofurkey for ground meat in chili, burgers, etc., which he says tastes good and has great texture, using more extensive spices for flavor, and he's experimenting with other products.  He's become addicted to fresh fruits and veggies.  His trek reminds me of my macrobiotic diet years ago, except that now the culture and the science is so much more supportive of meatless cuisine.  He is inspiring me to reduce my own meat intake once again. The circle turns back on itself.

Because this is a dog blog, I suppose I need to say at least one thing about dogs.  Nathan has 4 dachshunds and they all like to pounce on him.  Doc advised Nathan to wear a pillow over his navel when the dogs are loose.  Visualizing that makes me laugh.

The wonders of science give me faith in the human race!  But before I get too euphoric, let's see how he recovers.

Upwards and onward!

 

P.S.  Forks Over Knives streams on Netflix, and is available on DVD from Amazon.com and other sources.  They also have a website:  www.forksoverknives.com and have a couple of cookbooks out now.

 

Cushings Disease and Fooh Fooh

FoohFooh and Maxie

Yesterday, after he bit my foot, John and I took our 12 year old American Dingo (Carolina Dog), FoohFooh (for whom this blog is partly named), to the vet to see if we could find out what's wrong with him.  He's been acting weird, and we fear he is becoming a danger to ourselves and especially to house guests.  Three weeks ago he lunged at my mother's arm and broke skin, trying to get at a piece of toast she was carrying around.

His presenting symptoms have been excessive water consumption, excessive urination (including indoors), excessive begging, ravanous appetite, weight loss, dull hair, lethargy, loss of muscle tone, irritability, food guarding, eating whole toilet paper rolls, plastic bags, paper towels, mail, raiding trash cans, and growling if you try to take them away, lying in the doorways and halls then snapping at us if we try to step over or move him (why he bit me), not coming when called, reluctance to go outside.

As soon as I told the vet, she said it was almost certainly Cushings Disease, a brain tumor on the pituitary gland that causes symptoms easily confused with "old age", but treatable, and a relief to know it is not painful to the dog. 

She spent a lot of time listening to his heart.  Feces and blood work came back "normal", no diabetes, but there was blood in the urine-- a unirary tract infection.  She put him on Keflex for 2 weeks.  After that he goes back for a second evaluation and to establish a course of treatment for Cushings.

The vet said "Look Cushings up on the internet.  There is a lot to learn."  That was a first -- a medical professional advising me to research a condition myself!  So this morning I Googled "Cushings Disease Dogs" and found that it is a disease of the endocrine system (see diagram).  Here are the most suscinct summaries I pieced together from here and there.

Symptoms: Symptoms of Cushing's disease can be vague and varied and tend to appear gradually and progressively. It is thus easy to mistake Cushing's disease for normal aging. Additionally, many of the clinical symptoms are not unique to Cushing's and could reflect a number of other health concerns.

The most common symptoms include:
• increased/excessive water consumption (polydipsia)
• increased/excessive urination (polyuria)
• urinary accidents in previously housetrained dogs
• increased/excessive appetite (polyphagia)
• appearance of food stealing/guarding, begging, trash dumping, etc.
• sagging, bloated, pot-bellied appearance
• weight gain or its appearance, due to fat redistribution
• loss of muscle mass, giving the appearance of weight loss
• bony, skull-like appearance of head
• exercise intolerance, lethargy, general or hind-leg weakness
• new reluctance to jump on furniture or people
• excess panting, seeking cool surfaces to rest on
• symmetrically thinning hair or baldness (alopecia) on torso
• other coat changes like dullness, dryness
• slow regrowth of hair after clipping
• thin, wrinkled, fragile, and/or darkly pigmented skin
• easily damaged/bruised skin that heals slowly
• hard, calcified lumps in the skin (calcinosis cutis)
• susceptibility to infections (especially skin and urinary)
• diabetes, pancreatitis, seizures

There are several types of Cushings, and different treatment for each one, but they all affect the pituitary and adrenal glands.  Here's a summary of that:

In health: In order to understand Cushing's disease, one needs to understand the basics of the negative feedback loop that operates in a normal, healthy dog. The pituitary gland, located at the base of the brain, produces ACTH (adrenocorticotrophic hormone), as directed by the hypothalamus (another part of the brain). This hormone is released into the bloodstream and stimulates the body's two adrenal glands, located near the kidneys, to secrete glucocorticoid (cortisone-like or cortisol) hormones into the bloodstream. Cortisol helps the body respond to stress. It is necessary for life and impacts a wide variety of bodily functions including blood sugar levels, fat metabolism, skeletal muscles, kidney function, nervous system, cardiovascular system, and immune response. ACTH/cortisol secretion is increased due to stress, including infection, pain, surgery, trauma, cold temperatures. When the blood cortisol levels are high enough, the pituitary stops secreting ACTH. When the blood cortisol levels dip low enough, the pituitary secretes more ACTH. The adrenals respond by secreting glucocorticoid hormones in response to the pituitary, just as the pituitary responds by secreting ACTH in response to the adrenals. The net effect is that a mildly fluctuating balance is achieved. This is an oversimplified picture of cortisol homeostasis in the healthy dog.

In Cushing's Disease: The feedback loop has gone awry for one of three reasons: a pituitary tumor, an adrenal tumor, or veterinary interference. The result is a chronic excess of blood cortisol. In effect, the dog is being poisoned with too much cortisol and cannot rely on its own feedback mechanism to regulate the blood cortisol level.
Cortisol increases appetite and thirst, so owners may notice that they are filling their dog’s food and water bowls much more often than usual, and in fact may report that their pet’s appetite is ravenous. Likewise, they often report abnormal hair loss that is symmetrical on both sides of their dog’s body, along with loss of muscle mass especially in the legs. Muscle atrophy and corresponding redistribution of weight often give dogs with this disease a “pot-bellied” look. They also commonly have poor wound healing. Dogs with hyperadrenocorticism are predisposed to developing other problems, including heart failure, diabetes mellitus, infections and high blood pressure. Typically, several of these signs appear at or around the same time. As the disease progresses, affected dogs’ signs typically worsen and increase in number. However, because Cushing’s is largely treatable, possibly curable and usually manageable, it is important for dog owners to become familiar with the signs of this disease.

Prevention:   Unfortunately, other than managing the medical use of corticosteroids, there is no way to prevent hyperadrenocorticism in dogs. Functional tumors of the pituitary and/or adrenal glands occur for unknown reasons, and until the cause of those tumors is discovered, prevention of Cushing’s disease is not realistic.

Bottom line: Cushing's disease is a common condition in older dogs and is often mistaken for signs of normal aging. Although most dogs with Cushing's disease cannot be cured, their quality of life (as well as the owner's quality of life) can be improved, and their lives may be extended with early intervention. It is often possible to successfully manage this disease for years. It thus behooves the pet owner to become familiar with the typical signs of Cushing's and the treatments available.



Fooh Fooh blocks the gate and won't move.

So, it looks like I'm on another voyage of discovery.  SIGH!  I always question the concept that there is no cure for things, and will commence exploring whether there are homeopathic remedies. There are so many other things I'd prefer to be doing but it's hard to ignore a 40 lb. dog that growls and snaps and limits my freedom of movement in my own home.  And I love my FoohFooh, though I must admit, my fond feelings for him diminish in proportion to his increased and unpredictable aggressiveness, as well as ruined carpets.  If anyone out there has experience with this disease, or with these feelings, please offer me your advice.

Upwards and onward, I guess . . . . .

Cataract Surgery - Part 1

I didn't want to say anything about my recent cataract surgery until I knew the outcome.  I went in calm and optimistic two weeks ago tomorrow, but it's been a scary and disappointing couple of weeks and I still don't know the outcome.  Meanwhile, I've missed all my classes, haven't practiced a bit, haven't trained the puppy, haven't exercised, couldn't teach my classes, and am just crossing my fingers that my depth perception will be back on track by this weekend for our club's annual Agility Trial.  I see 20/20 with the new eye (says the doctor), but it feels like someone else's eye in my body, there is considerable eye strain, and the ground swells up and the background spins when I try to run or turn fast.

I scheduled this surgery 3 weeks before our trial, on assurances that I'd be up and running within 3 days!  But I didn't even dare drive for the first week, and still don't go down stairs without holding on to the railing. I drive with extreme caution, checking and rechecking my spacing. I hope I can run my courses and help with the trial.  Far from hoping for Q's for Maxie and Lucky, I'm just hoping to complete my runs and not trip, fall, injure or embarass myself.

It's been a disorienting two weeks.  I'm jotting down a whirlwind of thoughts and tips but am not ready to share.  Meanwhile, I'm keeping busy doing things I can.  Like right now -- laundry and planning meals for the weekend when I'll be too tired to cook.  And I've probably killed 1,000 stinging caterpillars.

Upwards and onward!

High Cholesterol!

Undergoing a complete physical for the first time, trying to figure out all the little quirks in my body and whether they are cause for alarm, urging myself at last to "Do It, Do It, Do It" so I can keep playing agility with my dogs, I have learned the following about myself:

Liver is good
Blood pressure is good
Thyroid is good
Mammography clear, no lymph swelling
No diabetes
Strong heart
Good circulation in both upper and lower extremities
Nothing wrong with my female plumbing except a few small fibroids.

So far, so good!  BUT, why, then, do I tire so easily, feel cotton-headed at times, have muscle twitches and electric twinges, and why all these charlie horses of late?  Why do my knees go numb and my left heel feels like a wooden peg sometimes?  And my ovaries ache. What brought on the bursitis? 

Only thing they found wrong is my cholesterol is "through the roof", the highest my doctor has ever seen, she says.  And my triglicerides are way too high, both raising the alarm for heart disease and stroke.  Smoking doesn't help.  My maternal family's record of high cholesterol doesn't help, since it's hereditary.  And of course I need to lose 25 lbs.

So, she put me on Vitamin D 50,000 mg/week, and Lipitor, which one of the common side effects is muscle cramps!  Muscle cramps!   I sought out medical attention in the first place because of muscle cramps. I can't afford muscle cramps. Crap, crap, crap!

So, I'm cruising the internet again, looking for alternatives to lower my cholesterol without drugs: oatmeal for breakfast, Niacin, more fruit, more vegetables, less fat.  I made a big fruit coctail last night, including 3 bananas, 1 orange, 1 apple, 1 sm can chunk pineapple, 1 tbsp sugar, and fresh rasberries.  I am about to go eat a cup of that. I could probably eat the whole tub in one sitting it's so scrumptuous!

I still have more tests to undergo, including a colonoscopy.  I'm not allergic to anything, so that's good.  These tests are costing a fortune, so I hope they give me a clear picture of my health so I can enjoy another 25 years of active living.

After this regimen, then it's time to visit the dentist after 3 years away.  I've never had good teeth though I brush and water-pic religiously.  Sometimes my gums ache, sometimes I chew and hit a nerve (very painful) and I'm sure I need some work by now.  It's depressing.  I don't want to think about it except there should be some supplement pregnant women can take by now that ensures their babies will have good teeth and bones.

That would definitely take mankind another step upwards and onward!