Monday, January 08, 2007

The long journey

And I'm not just talking about the drive to Houston...

Today we met with Dr. Clarke because Dr. Burney had to go home early to watch their kids because his wife is sick. That wasn't a big deal since she was briefed on the case by Burney and pretty much knew how Burney wanted to proceed.

We were reminded that Bear's condition is one that can be beaten, but it's going to take months and that we're doing the best we can to beat it.

We were offered the option of having surgery that would help in the process, but decided that we thought it would be too much for Bear to take, partly because they'd have to break his hip to get to his colon. We just didn't think that the payoff was worth all that he'd be put through.

With that, we're continuing the medications that he's on, along with two more that should help ease any pain he's having.

They took some blood to check his liver function, which can be affected by some of the medication he's on.

Dr. Clarke also recommended a food change to Eukanuba low residue, a prescription food that doesn't generate as much waste as most food. She told us that she usually recommends it to any patient that comes in with GI problems.

We go back in a month for a recheck and progress report.

Considering we thought that we were going to have to put him down, we left pretty happy with what we were told.

The little research I've done (a Google and Wiki search) into what Bear has shows that Bear's chances of coming out of this aren't very good, but we're holding out hope that our boy will defy the odds and beat this thing.

That's about all we can do.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

2 comments:

K T Cat said...

He has a long, uncertain road ahead of him with a guarantee that some of it will be rough?

Sounds like life.

Seriously, though, I'm very happy to hear this. I have a good feeling about it. Best wishes to all y'all and give Bear a big hug for the entire Theocracy.

Justin said...

Well it seems like we've seen some improvement in him the last few days. He's still by no means anywhere near 100%.

For about a week he was wanting to go outside to try to do his business every hour it seemed. He stopped with that a few days ago. We figure him not asking as much means that he's getting poop out when he does do his business for the simple fact that we don't figure he'd wake us up to go out if he didn't need to, something he's never done in the past.

It's not like he's been eating less. Yes he's been eating the low-residue dog food, but the let-up started before the vet visit where we got it.