Thursday, August 11, 2005

 
All of a sudden, stuff's gone rather haywire.

Side comment: ooh, I'd forgotten Lost, Tosha. We've got it recorded, so I must give it a go.

Back to the plot. So, I got back at around 0015 this morning, having, as planned, gone to a brilliant Messiaen recital yesterday at Marienkirche and then caught the 2240 (well, more like 2300 with delays) plane back to Stansted. Got to sleep by 0030, and Jo let me know how very, very pleased she was to see me around 0600. So, five and a half hours, after a hard day. But hey, it was fantastic to hear Jo burbling so happily, and there's no better way to wake up. (Well, maybe one, but that's a distant memory with a little baby!). Now, Suzy (our Newfoundland dog) has been on antibiotics for a couple of weeks with an ear infection, and she's been eating less and less. We thought that maybe she was being affected by the pills, but when she even refused a sausage this morning (a real treat for her, usually), we decided that we needed to call the vets (aside:damn, but Lemon Jelly are a good band!), and booked an appointment for her for 1820. This meant my leaving work early, as Moo and Jo are down in London with her sister and family (Jenny, Jake, their daughter Turtle - long story - and Kate and Mac, my parents-in-law), so she couldn't take Suzy in. This ended up being quite useful as I discovered that my gout has started playing up.

A digression. Gout is not caused by drinking too much port and eating to much rich food (though I do wonder about the good suppers I had in Germany). Most people get it in their big toe (something to do with joints) - I get it in my ankle. It's bloody painful, and I know that if I can get an anti-inflammatory to it sharpish, it's much, much better than waiting, because the pain gets seriously bad after a few days. Since the last time I had it, they've removed from circulation the drug that I used to take (something about heart attacks or other minor side effects, I think), and I didn't have any pills. So, I had to phone the doctor, and go and pick up a new prescription (Diclofenac sodium tablets, if anyone cares). Most people take ibuprofen-based drugs, but I have an interesting reaction to them: they give me serious PMT (irrational, tearful, grumpy, etc.).

Anyway, it was therefore useful to have to leave work early, as it gave me the chance to pick up my pills. And a set of lisinopril for hypertension (why, why, why won't the doctors let me have more than a month's worth? It's not as if I'm about to come off it in the near future, or about to sell it to the local disaffected yoof - though, knowing some of them, they might give it a go).

Where was I? Yes. I also took Suzy to the lovely vets in Halstead. We'd been a bit worried that they might not take it seriously, but we were convinced something was wrong with Suzy, and they really paid a lot of attention. She's been listless, panting, not eating, and on feeling her abdomen, they found that it was very distended. In fact, though she's clearly lots lots of weight (you can feel her spine very markedly through her fur, poor thing), when we weighed her at the vets, she was up from her usual, so lots of fluid. Worried that it might bleeding, and so decided to keep her in, run some blood tests and see what they could find. We were pleased to hear that there's nothing obvious, and that the fluid isn't blood, but it raises the question of what the problem could be. The obvious, apparently, is heart disease (common in the "giant" breeds, though she's a small specimen), but although her heartrate was rather fast, there was no sign of a murmur. On the other hand, since she was panting so hard, it was difficult to tell. They're giving her some diuretics (to try to remove the fluid), some painkillers (to try to settle her), finishing off the antibiotics she's on, and they've given her some heart pills (don't know quite what) as a prophylactic measure. We hope to have more of an idea what the problem is tomorrow, when hopefully the fluid will have gone down, but there's talking about referring her to a specialist, which will be expensive. Luckily she's insured, but we need to find out how much that covers. Oh, it's hard having a family sometimes - of course I'm relieved that it's not Jo or Moo, but kids (even teeny ones) can usually give some idea of what's wrong: it's really hard to diagnose a dog. Well, we'll see.

Music today


# posted by MikeCamel @ 7:14 pm
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