Jasper (12 yr old Mini Schnauzer) is now at peace

Hi Tina

Another week has ticked by, hope it was a good one for you guys. Has Jasper's appetite picked up off the antibiotic?

How's that wrist feeling??? You still on the Pred?

xxxx and hugs for you and Jasper and Shelby, yes, I would like to see some more pics too :D:D:D

Hi Tina

I see you light on, bad timing on my part as I need to go out for an hour or so.... hopefully see you a bit later :D

Hi Tina! How is Jasper doing now that he is off his antibiotic? Is his appetite coming back?

Yes, how is that wrist doing? I saw you mentioned the voice on the ipad, so guess you are still not up to typing yet.

Take care of yourself
hugs
Sharlene and molly muffin

Hey Girls!
Gosh I guess I haven't checked in here all week, I've been so busy. Thanks for asking about my wrist and Jasper. The wrist feels tons better after being on prednisone for a week. Had two follow-up Drs appointments on Thursday, (had to take another sick day :eek:), and he prescribed another eight days of prednisone and increased the dose a little bit. I had been on a pretty hefty dose and tapered it down to 10 mg daily and now I'm taking 20 mg daily for another eight days with no taper. :eek: I hope that's going to be okay but he didn't order me to taper down, and I double checked with the pharmacist and she said it would be fine since I'm only taking it for another week or so. That stuff just make me nervous, but I know it is necessary.

I am still having some pain in the wrist and I think he was concerned about the inflammation flaring up again, so prescribed another week. The bad news is that I need to have surgery. :eek: :( :eek: He's ordered an MRI which hasn't been scheduled yet. It needs to be preauthorized through my insurance, and we are waiting to hear the decision on that. Hopefully they'll approve the MRI, otherwise I guess I won't be having it because it is way expensive.

So I guess after that the surgery will get scheduled. I'm very unhappy and disgusted about it. I have a lot to figure out between work and home. It's tough because I live alone, and I don't have any family in town to help. I'm going to have to figure out something because I think I'll probably need help for a day or two for sure, maybe longer. So things are kind of up in the air right now, and I'm feeling a bit of stress from that. I think I'll feel better once I can kind of pin down the timeframe of when the surgery will be scheduled and get some things in place here.

Thankfully, Jasper has been pretty stable through all of this and no emergencies. His eating has picked up some since being off the antibiotic, however he's still not eating the dry food on its own without a little bit of canned food mixed in. He did for one meal yesterday and I was very encouraged, and then now today he's not too interested. But all I'm mixing in is about 1 tablespoon so I guess I really don't mind doing that if that's what it takes. I'm just happy that he's eating and he does finish as long as I mix a little bit of the canned in. He still seems pretty low-energy and mopey to me, and pretty much sleeps all the time. I'd like for that to improve a little bit, so not sure what's going on there.

I checked in with the vet on Monday to give her an update and let her know how he was doing since being off the antibiotic, and she felt that he was showing good improvement. She wanted to give it a little bit longer for the appetite to pick up since stopping the meds, and to see if his energy improves. She said to see how he does over the next week, which is about over by now. She kind of acted like his low-energy wasn't that big of a deal. :mad: I asked her about a follow-up urine culture and she didn't really feel that it was necessary since a lot of times Jasper's cultures don't grow anything anyway because the urine is so dilute. She said as long as he continues to do okay and doesn't seem to be back sliding, that she was on the fence about repeating the urine culture. She said if I really wanted to we could get one. I told her that we could hold off for now and I would just see how he did over the next week or so. So far so good I guess, I haven't seen any additional urinating issues.

I picked up his Percorten and syringes, so I'm all ready to give his Percorten injection next week. That is if I have two functioning hands! Holy cow that medication is expensive, but I just have to remember that it will last for several months. It's just a big chunk to buy that vial all at once.

So that's what's going on in our neck of the woods. Kind of feel a bit down right now about my issues but I always try to look at the bright side of things, and I just keep telling myself thank God it isn't my right wrist that this happened to and needs the surgery. I'd be up a creek if that was the case.

Hugs,
Tina and Jasper xo

You need a plan in place. You know, we always feel better with a plan. I think these dogs have got us trained pretty well. Live us blowing in the wind not knowing which way is which and we just won't settle down until there is a plan in place. So, that is what you need for your wrist. :)

insurance approval - check
mri scheduled - check
surgery scheduled - check
work notified - check
location of friend to stay with you a couple days or family to come from out of town to stay for a couple days - check

You'll be okay, once that is in place, just check them off as they come in and you'll see how close you are to getting that plan in place and accomplished!!

Hang in there.
Glad Jasper seems to be doing okay. I know it's tricky with his appetite, but hopefully that will improve along with energy levels.

hugs
Sharlene and molly muffin

Sharlene, you are so right! I know that a plan is what is needed, and I will feel so much better. Unfortunately I just have to wait a little bit to get the ball rolling, then hopefully everything else will fall into place.

I have already let my manager know what is going on for work purposes, and I'm feeling quite stressed about that. Of course there are other people that already have vacations scheduled, so it's a little tense. But I can't help it, there isn't anything I can do about it. I will do the best I can as far as scheduling, but I'm pretty much at the mercy of the surgeon. I work for a nonprofit agency, so of course our staffing is about as bare-bones as it can get. And also I need to see when someone from my family might be able to come to help out a little bit, so I have to take that into account.

This darned voice recognition thing keeps trying to spell your name with a C rather than an S, and I'm getting quite annoyed with that! LOL. :D

I'm back!!! Awwww think you gone now :( But it is late there, Sat night though so you can at least sleep in!!

OMG Tina, that wrist!! What is he going to do, remove the calcium deposit? Ouchies!! Do you need a GA or they do a block? Wow an MRI, obviously plain xray not clear enough. Hope the insurance people come through asap. Hope you Mum can come stay and look after you and Jasper and Shelby. Or someone else in the family, I would love to come... I will bring Flynny!

Don't worry about work, many a time you have gone in Tina when you should have stayed home. No one can doubt your conscientiousness! Sometimes you just got to take care of yourself and you make sure you take the maximum amount of time off so you can heal properly and not go back too soon. How does your sick leave work over there?

Yes, a plan like Sharlene said sounds the deal.

So pleased Jasper is holding his own this week, good boy Jazzy!! :D

I'm still here Trish! My weather radio is going off about every 10 minutes, there is a huge line of severe thunderstorms moving in from the west. So I wanted to get everybody outside for the last time tonight before things started revving up. I'm hoping Jasper will be good for the night now, but who knows. He has been drinking a bit more yesterday and today, so I need to keep an eye on that. So far nothing but thunder and a lots of lightning off to the west. But there is supposed to be 60 mph winds moving in, gosh I hope that misses us.

Gawd, I hope it does too. We had a bit of a storm during the week, I had to right my roses today! Other places had a bit more damage with trees over everywhere. I was a bit worried about my early morning drive for the meeting, but it was fine apart form a few slips on the road on the mountains. Might be in your laundry again?

I know! I really wasn't thinking it would need surgery, I guess I always hope for the best.

The x-ray shows a pretty good size calcium deposit. I think he wants to get the MRI to pinpoint exactly where it is in relation to the bones of my wrist and the tendons that go through there. I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. But that was kind of what it sounded like. Yes, the plan is to remove the calcium deposit. He said it would not be GA so I'm guessing some sort of block. However, I have to fast and prepare as if I was having GA just in case it is needed, I guess. I know, I'm kind of worried about approval from the insurance company for the MRI. I had a couple of friends at work with various issues, of course quite different from mine, but their MRIs were denied. :(

OMG, I would love it if you and Flynny could come! Although my little Shelby girl isn't the most friendly sometimes. I'm sure he would set her straight LOL! :D Boy, when something like this happens, it really makes you think about a lot of things. 99% of the time I am just find all by myself but with this type of thing it is quite inconvenient! Of course my main concern is the dogs and if Jasper would get sick or something and I would need additional help with that.

I'm trying to not worry about work, I know, you're right. I work a lot of extra hours and I'm very reliable and dependable. I hardly ever miss work for anything. But it doesn't seem like that matters when a situation like this comes up for some reason. The first thing that was asked, of course, is how long I was going to need to be out. Doesn't make you feel very good about things. I have plenty of sick time accumulated, and this would be considered scheduled sick leave.