Sunday, December 14, 2014

Decorating

Christmas is really sneaking up on us this year. Luckily, Henry was feeling better this weekend and could supervise the tree trimming. For the most part, he kept us on track. Although, after a bit of work, he did insist on taking a snack break!

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Table for One

Cupid has always eaten at her own special spot in a little bar area in the kitchen. This has kept her food safe from the pugs and allows her to graze all day. However, as she has aged, getting up to her special little eating area has proven more challenging. We moved a chair over to assist her, but recently that has become too much for her. So, we bought her a small table and gave her a new setup in the kitchen. We even got her a step stool to assist in getting on the table.

And wouldn't you know that Cupid's new table is getting quite a bit of attention for hungry Henry. At first he would just stand next to the table and smell. But, now he is getting a tad braver and is using the step stool to get a better view. How long do you think it will be until he uses the step stool to get on the table and help himself to some kitty food?

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Pillow Queen

I'm not sure what it is about the pillows around here, but it seems everyone loves a big pile of pillows to lounge on. The weather the last few days has been a bit chilly and whenever the temps dip you can usually find Cupid seeking out some extra warmth on pillows or blankets. I think Benny would be proud!

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

A Cheap Date

The day after Henry's big day at the neurologist, Cupid had an appointment with our local vet for some follow up blood work as related to her thyroid issues. We are still waiting on those results. But this is not about her results. This is about Cupid being a cheap date at the vet.

Let's just say that Henry is 5 star pug at the vet and in comparison, Cupid likes to camp. Cupid reminds us why we are cat lovers in addition to dog lovers. Cats typically require so much less from your pocketbook. LOL

And look how well Cupid does in the car. She is just sitting there like a good little meowzer. She travels well and is the belle of lobby ball at the vet's office. She says she doesn't need no stinking box. She goes like a pug (in a harness and leash) and does a superb job. #CupidISaPug!

Monday, December 8, 2014

Henry and The Brain

For the curious, here are snapshots from Henry's MRI. The area I circled in red is the spot of the hemorrhage. In the picture of the scan you can also see two other, much smaller black areas. Those are also small hemorrhage areas.

The area highlighted in red, also has some inflammation around it. You can see the inflammation in a different view. The white area is a bit of swelling which indicates that the hemorrhage is fairly recent. With time, the inflammation should subside.

Despite these scary images, Henry seems to be doing OK. So far, Henry has not had any more seizures since Thursday. Which is so relieving, but we are still a bit on edge and are watching him ever so closely. His vision does seem to have taken a turn for the worst, but we are working with him on that. We are so very lucky that Henry has weathered yet another storm!

Sunday, December 7, 2014

A Scare

Last Thursday, Henry gave us quite a scare. I was working from home and Henry was in my office snoozing away when he woke up with a start. He stood straight up and his face was twitching a bit. Thinking he was dreaming or something, I gave him a quick pat on the head and that seemed to snap him out of it. He promptly laid back down and went back to sleep.

A little later, I gave him his breakfast (it was an early start to the day for me). He was happy about that and came back into my office and went back to sleep. About an hour later, he got up and threw up.

Henry settled pretty easily after throwing up, but about an hour later he woke suddenly with the same facial twitches. This time, I knew something was not right and off to the vet we went.

They gave Henry an anti nausea shot and no one was really sure what to make of the facial twitching. Looking back, I also did not describe his facial twitching well at the vet. I described it more as a teeth chattering, which it clearing was not.

Henry acted like his normal self while at the vet and seemed fine when we got home. I went back to work and he settled once again at my feet under my desk. Once again he awoke with a start and had another episode of the weird facial twitches. By this time, I was on high alert and worried. But, Henry quickly settled and went right back to sleep. About an hour later, Henry woke up and had more facial twitches, but this time he went into full seizure that lasted 2-3 minutes.

I was pretty panicked by the situation. I have no experience with seizures in dogs or humans for that matter. I got Henry on his side and made sure he was safe in his surroundings. When Henry came out of the seizure, he could walk and seemed to have all of his functions. He was panicked and started to frantically pace about the house.

Once I felt like Henry was stable, we immediately left for the vet. Once we got to the vet, Henry had a shot of an anti seizure med and our vet referred us to a veterinarian neurologist. We were also warned that given Henry's age and history of cancer that a brain tumor was a high possibility. Luckily, our vet was able to get us an appointment with the neurologist the next morning. So we didn't have too long to worry about all the possible reasons that Henry suddenly started having seizures.

But even though the appointment was a mere 18 hours away we still had to worry about Henry having more seizures. After all, he had 3 petite seizures and one grand mal seizure in the course of 4 hours already that day.

Henry was well medicated when we left the vet and did well for the rest of the night. He did not have any more seizures before we made it to the neurologist about 90 miles away.

When we met with the neurologist, he suggested that the only way to really know what was going on was to have an MRI done on Henry's brain. If we didn't want to do that, we could start a general course of treatment, but if we figured out what exactly what the cause was we might be able to provide better treatment.

A brain tumor seemed to be the most likely thing. It could be metastasis from his renal cancer or a completely different tumor all together. Wanting to know exactly what we are up against we decided to have the MRI done. And I am very glad we did. It turns out it is not a brain tumor. It looks like Henry had a brain hemorrhage. A brain hemorrhage is by no means good news, but it is better than a brain tumor. There is a lot more uncertainty with a brain hemorrhage. What caused it? Will he have another one? We don't know with 100% certainty the answers to any of those questions.

The most likely cause for the hemorrhage is high blood pressure. We adjusted Henry's meds in hopes that that will help and we also put him on an anti seizure medication. We don't really know what the future will hold at this point. Will he keep having seizures? Will he have another hemorrhage? We were very lucky that his first hemorrhage happened in a part of the brain "that basically does nothing" to quote the neurologist. Had it happened in a different part of the brain or if it does happen in a different part of the brain we could have a very different outcome.

In the meantime, we are trying to make every day a great day for Henry. Just making him feel loved and happy.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Separation Anxiety

Since the passing of Benjamin and Luna, Henry has terrible separation anxiety. Like bad. Like it's been weeks since the humans have left the house together sans Henry bad. Ok, so that is an exaggeration, but barely. Henry is ok for the weekday routine. He knows the deal there and manages pretty well. It's the weekends where he kind of spirals out of control. When the routine is not at all like a weekday. He knows we sleep a little later, wear different, more relaxing clothes, spend a more relaxed time at the breakfast table (no rushy rushy) and he knows that he can go MOST places. But it's those OTHER places where he cannot go and when we have to leave him at home where he melts like a snowman in July.

Whether you are "pro crate" or "anti crate" it is important to know that the boys learned to enjoy their crates as puppies. And this was more for their own safety than anything. While we puppy proofed our home, there would still be things that we would not have been able to keep them from had they not been crated. And from mere weeks old, they learned to know their crate as a safe, happy place. And throughout most of their lives, the boys had shared a crate.

Anyway, leaving Henry home alone while we do things together, like grocery shop, run errands, go to the gym, etc has become extremely hard. And there have only been a handful of times over the last couple of months when we have been able to have people time away from the house. Alone. And those couple of times did not turn out very well. With the new crate cam, we have spied on him to see how he's faring. And often, it is not good and we rush home to a worked up pug panting for the return of his people pack.

The latest solution has been to treat Saturdays like a work day. Oy! That means being up bright and early and planning our trip away from home so that it is as similar to a weekday as possible. This did work for the first time last weekend. While Henry did become suspicious since we were more casually dressed and he does know the Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday days better than Monday-Wednesday days, we did manage to fool him. But he did ponder it for a little while and although he almost fully imploded, he did manage to settle himself and it all worked out.

Of course, getting another dog has been suggested and considered, but Henry, we feel, like us, just wants his OLD dogs back. And they are not coming back. We would more strongly consider another dog IF we knew it would help him. But there is no guarantee. And then we'd really have a tough time. Plus, what age dog would we even get? A puppy? No way. Even WE are getting too old to enjoy a puppy! A 5 year old? Hmmm....a dog old enough to have any number of bad habits or various anxiety issues of his or her own. One which Henry and new dog could feed their angst off of? No thanks. A laid back older dog? Maybe. We would do anything for Henry if it helped him feel better. But, when we are out, Henry shows absolutely no interest in any other dogs. Big, small, pug, non pug, he simply does not pay any attention to them.

For now, we will continue to manage Henry's needs as best we can. We have Grammy pugsitting 4 days a week already so we really don't want to burn her out and we can schedule one weekend day to be predominately a stay home day where worst case scenario, the humans take turns running errands while Henry still has one of us there. At least that is the good thing! Henry is ok with either one of his people there. They don't both have to be there! (Luna was a little more specific. She did have a favorite person. So we are lucky that Henry is more easy going in that regard.)