And the ratio is...

Dogger had her second electrolyte check yesterday and her ratio is very, very good! 31! The vet said her heart sounded great, her blood pressure is better than it has been in a while and it was very easy to get blood from her this time. It hadn’t been mentioned to me before that her blood pressure had room to get better or that it was difficult to draw blood from her. I’ve known it was difficult to get Dogger back to where they do the blood draws, but no one had ever said anything about difficulty getting the blood out once she was back there. Dogger does not want to go back there and does not co-operate, and now I know why. I was counting down to the first lines of We Shall Overcome this time when Dogger finally decided that she would, after all, allow them to try to take her blood. I think it was the promise of many cookies and three lab techs cooing over her. Dogger can’t resist a good group coo.

Speaking of “many”. Dogger has gained two pounds in three weeks! I had noticed she has been lethargic lately and mentioned to the vet, I had chalked it up to not being on pred anymore. I didn’t even notice that the junk in her trunk was causing her back tires to go flat until the vet pointed it out. She’s not lethargic because she’s ill, she’s lethargic because hauling around all that extra flab is exhausting. When she got sick she was down to eighty-seven pounds, yesterday at her appointment she was ninety-six point five! She has no waist! Her girlish figure has gone to pot. I remember right after she was diagnosed I had her at the park and one of the other dog people came in and took a look at the very wane Dogger and exclaimed “Wow! Did she drop a ton of weight? She looks terrific!” I was like, Well, she is dying, so yeah, I guess she has dropped some weight.. Well, she’s not dying anymore and any weight she’s come in contact with, she’s picked up and taken with her.

And I have been exercising her, above her usual visit to the park. I have also been adding a short walk after we get home. I added the walk component because we’ve been using the small dog park so Dogger hasn’t been getting as much strolling space as she was used to. But, obviously, more exercise is needed. But just in case her lethargy isn’t entirely weight based, the vet put her on back on her low dose pred twice a week until her next check up in three weeks. The good news is that if her ratio is good at that check that we can stop these every-three-week trips to the vet and stretch out the checks to every month and then every three months. Yay!

Dogger is going to back on her old 5mg a day pred regime this weekend because we’re traveling, but maybe if it perks her up a little we can get in some nice long walks to start getting some of that junk out of her trunk, but of course, only if she wants to, do you have any idea how hard it is to ask ninety-six pounds of uncooperative muscle to do something it doesn't want to do?