1.16.2015: Look what you've done!

It's been a long week of cold, dark and rainy weather and all of us were starting to go a bit crazy with restless energy, and finally an accident happens to top it all off...thankfully, no major injuries to report.

The guilty look afterwards

We got this baby gate last summer when Misty had her back injury and we needed an additional gate to limit her movements around the house. Although it was a bit of a stretch for our extra wide entryway, we made it work with some wooden spacers. Normally it's quite sturdy, but clearly not if you have 2 large dogs trying to pass through it at the same time, at a full speed. I really would rather not put any holes into the door frame, but we may be headed in that direction...

9.3.2014: Uncertain time

We had a very stressful Labor Day weekend. What was suppose to be a quiet and restful 3 days turned into a huge emotional ordeal. We woke up early Saturday morning to find Misty in a puddle of her urine on our bedroom floor. Although a bit shocked, we did not panic and calmly cleaned up the mess. We did not want to upset our dog, who remained lying down on her side as if she was embarrased by her accident, or just clueless as to what had happened. After giving her a bath, she slept comfortably on our bed while we looked up incontinence on the Internet. Our initial thought was that it was a beginning stage of age-related incontinence--nothing too serious and certainly nothing we can't handle. We were planning a visit to the vet after the holiday weekend. However, after about 20 minutes, we noticed a slight tremor and general weakness about her and decided to take her in immediately.

So, we spent most of Saturday waiting anxiously as they ran various diagnostic tests on our dog. Our doctor wanted to rule out any internal problems such as bleeding or kidney stones. Also, we found a new lump on her front leg which the doctor thought looked more suspicious, like a bone cancer which can quickly spread to the lungs. It was just this past May when we had the whole biopsy ordeal with her hind leg, so we felt a bit dazed by how we were in this situation again so soon.

The test results came back and they were mostly good news--no internal issues, and the mass on her joint is a soft tissue and not in her bone. It doesn't rule out cancer altogether and we'll have to get another biopsy done on it in the near future, but at least it isn't the fatal bone cancer that we were afraid of. Her x-rays did show an advanced arthritic condition on her hips, which the doctor said was "one of the worst she's seen in a while". She's convinced that Misty was in a lot of pain due to her arthritis and this is what was causing her weakness and her incontinence. Misty received a laser treatment to reduce the inflammation and we left the office feeling relieved for the most part that it wasn't anything serious and started her on arthritis/pain medicine that evening.

8.30.2014: Right after we came back from the vet's office

It's now Wednesday, and Misty isn't feeling too much better...or maybe even worse. The 2 medicines that was given were Rimadyl (NSAIDS) and Tramadol (narcotics). The doctor told us that these med should make her feel much better in 24-48 hours, but did caution us to look for signs of side effects of Rimadyl, such as vomiting, refusal to eat, and confusion. Although she wasn't vomiting, her appetite has gradually declined since Saturday and she's now eating very little and needs a lot of coaxing and hand feeding, and she's very lethargic and weak, sleeping most of the day and night. We also noticed she seemed more dazed and off balance. We did some research about Rimadyl and were alarmed by a ton of negative opinions and personal experiences on the internet--stories of people losing their pets after administering Rimadyl for as little as few days or weeks due to sudden liver failure and internal bleeding. So, yesterday we stopped the med and today, there's no change. I went out and got fish oil for her based on recommendations by our doctor and others. We are also continuing to give her glucosamine supplement which she has been on for awhile now.

At this point, we are just closely monitoring her condition. If she doesn't improve after couple of days, we'll have to take her back in, or sooner if her condition worsens. It's just the most terrible, helpless feeling at the moment...

Update 9.4.2014:
Misty refused to eat her food last night, so I cooked some chicken for her and she ate that just fine. This morning, she had a hard time eating again and couldn't finish even her favorite chicken...I don't know what to make of it. She's also not drinking any water unless we hand feed her. I don't know if lowering her head down to eat/drink is hurting her, since she's taking food/water only from our hands. On a more positive note, she seems to be better in terms of balance and she's a bit more alert, making eye contact with us and listening to what we're saying. She seems to be comfortable when lying down and sleeping, but appears very weak on her feet, panting heavily and staring out into space while standing still in place. Convinced she's in pain, this morning we decided to put her back on Rimadyl, but at half the dosage. We'll see how she does...

Update 9.5.2014:
Misty showed some signs of improvement late yesterday afternoon! After sleeping the whole day, she got up by herself for the first time and came looking for me, wagging her tail. She appeared much more alert and had her appetite back and gulped down her dinner. The rest of the evening was really good--she was moving around better, wasn't panting as much and was in a great spirit all around. I don't know if the improvement is due to Rimadyl or fish oil, or neither or both...at this point, we don't care and just want to see her get better. She slept well overnight, but then was once again lethargic in the morning. Even so, we feel she's looking better than she has in any other morning so far, so we're hopeful she'll continue to regain her strength. We gave her another dose of Rimadyl this morning, still not 100% comfortable with it, but for now we feel it's for the best to keep her on it.

Update 9.8.2014:
Misty's condition over the weekend was stable for the most part. She's still pretty slow and weak on her feet and is sleeping a lot during the day, but much more alert. This morning, we decided that she's now stable enough to go in for her biopsy on her front leg, so we went ahead and made an appointment for this Friday. Hopefully, we'll get good news but it'll be once again quite stressful until we find out.

9.6.2014: Looking much more alert and comfortable!

Update 9.13.2014

What a difference a few days make...we never made it in for Misty's biopsy yesterday as her condition took a nose dive. It started to get worse progressively since about the middle of the week. On significant incident did happen on Tuesday evening when my other dog tried to hump her while outside to pee. This is a pretty common behavior that's been going on for 10 years--whenever Jasper gets excited by either Misty's or the neighborhood dogs' barking or some other noise outside, he would try to hump Misty, which we think is just a dominance behavior. This has not been an issue in the past and I can recall only a couple of times when Misty either retaliated or cried out in discomfort. Well, she yelped when it happened on Tuesday. It was only for a brief second and she was fine afterwards, but I can't help but wonder if that may have contributed to her getting worse. On Thursday, she was looking especially terrible, unable to walk more than 20 steps and unable to even squat to pee. We decided to increase her Rimadyl dosage back up to 75mg, twice a day.

On Friday morning, after canceling her biopsy appointment, I went ahead and emailed our vet, detailing everything that's been observed for the past 2 weeks. She was very concerned and now believed Misty may have additional back pain unrelated to arthritis in her hips. She mentioned herniated disk, a condition that I was already suspicious of from the very beginning. Although I don't doubt that Misty has arthritis, this particular incident seemed way too much "all of a sudden" for it to be just arthritis. Our vet suggested that we bring Misty back in for a followup exam and to maybe try steroids, which may help with the inflammation related to the possible disk injury.

IVDD (Intervertebral Disk Disease) is the proper name for the said herniated disk, and although it's a very serious and scary condition, at the moment I feel somewhat relieved to at least have a more probable diagnosis. While both arthritis and IVDD are managed with NSAIDs and steroids, there's a huge difference in their treatment approach--while with arthritis mild exercise is encouraged to promote flexibility and strength, with IVDD, absolute rest is required to reduce inflammation and to stop any further damage to the spinal cord which can result in irreversible paralysis. Had I been given the proper diagnosis from the beginning, I wouldn't have let her move around so much whenever she started to feel a bit better, and we would've prevented the humping incident of Tuesday.

We are very nervous that Misty's condition will continue to progress, but at the same time I'm hopeful of her recovery with proper rest. Since yesterday, we've been very vigilant about limiting her movement. We were unsuccessfully in crating her (she couldn't turn around), so for now we're having to take turns just watching her and confining her to her bed. Last night was very tough and this morning we almost had an emotional breakdown and was on the verge of taking her back in for the steroid treatment, but after talking things out, we eventually calmed down and decided to wait it out a little bit longer to see what effects a full rest might have on her. So the roller coaster continues...

9.13.2014: Misty resting, Jasper keeping her close by

9.14.2014: sleeping pretty comfortably

Update 9.19.2014:
It's been almost a week since the last update, and I'm happy to report that Misty has made some significant progress since then. After about 3 days of confining her to a strict bed rest (even during feeding time), she started to show signs of improvement--she was much more alert, breathing normally, regained her appetite and her leg strength has improved some. We limited her movement to only very short pee breaks, and even then we supported her back and hind legs in a sling. During the day, she stayed on her bed in our living room and slept majority of the day while we watched her every second, and at nights she slept on our bed while we took turns sleeping on the floor.

Starting from Monday, we quarantined her to a makeshift kennel in the corner of the living room which didn't take too long for her to get used to. Because we really did not want to crate her, we had to get a little creative with our furniture arrangement and a baby gate that we had. It turned out to be a very cozy little "resort", and we have spent a fair share of time sitting in it as well while keeping her company.  As the week progressed, she started to sit up more, and her strength continued to improve, walking almost normally and pulling more on the leash.

We are so relieved that the bed rest seems to be working and that she's doing so much better. She's looking like her old self again, no longer spaced out in pain. We'll continue to keep her at rest for at least another week or longer. The recommended time is usually around 4-6 weeks, but I'm not sure that we'll need all of it. For the time being, she continues to take Rimadyl 75mg twice a day, glucosamine and fish oil supplements. We got some recommendations for a homeopathic alternative to Rimadyl, so we're looking into possibly trying it in the future.

9.18.2014: Misty in the "resort", starting to sit up more.

9.18.2014: Looking so~ much better!

Update 10.1.2014:

It's been 11 days since the last update, and Misty has been making steady recovery! At this point, we feel pretty comfortable letting her walk without the support of a sling, and she's been doing wonderfully in all aspects. We are still keeping her in the quarantine area during the day when we cannot keep an eye on her. Right now, the only thing that is of a concern is her skin condition--she's been breaking out in these odd dark, smelly, flaky spots all over her body which is obviously very itchy to her and she has managed to bite it raw in couple of areas when we weren't monitoring and we've had to apply antibiotic ointment and bandage it up. 

dark flaky patches all over her body

This skin condition started pretty much couple of days after her injury back in August and I'm almost convinced that it's a side effect of Rimadyl. So, on 9/22 we took her off of it and switched her to a homeopathic pain med called Zeel. It was recommended by someone who's been giving it to his arthritic dog and he swears by it and further research on the product yielded a ton of positive reviews, so we decided to give it a try. This is now the second week on it, and we can really see the difference in Misty--she's so much stronger and sleeping soundlessly through the night, and I feel her strange "rash" is also less. It also doesn't have that foul odor like when she was on Rimadyl, so I'm thinking that Rimadyl is slowly being flushed out of her system. They say that it can take up to 4-6 weeks for it to be completely washed out, so I'm hoping we're almost there! Right now though, I'm just extremely happy and over the moon to see her doing so much better!

Update 11.6.2014:

I've been meaning to write this update for awhile now, but the past several weeks have been quite hectic with travel, photoshoots, and Birthdays. A lot of good progress has been made since the last post, and we started to see some real noticeable improvement in her condition by about middle of October. At this very moment, I'm cautious to say, but I think she's 100% recovered from her back injury. She's pretty much back to her old self, running around crazy and she's got that puppy spark in her eyes again! She's eating well, and we have not detected any sort of discomfort in her movements. We have also managed to clear up her strange skin "rash" since the last post. It actually turned out to be a skin infection called, Malassezia Dermatitis. It is basically a yeast proliferation caused by a change in the skin condition--allergy, immune deficiency or hormonal imbalance can all be the cause. In Misty's case, I suspect her immune system was lowered as a result of her injury and Rimadyl wreaking havoc on her system. To clear up the infection, we used an antimicrobial shampoo and we also started her on immune boosting supplements. Her skin improved within a week!

10.19.2014: Misty feeling so much better!

10.20.2014: Playing with her toy after her bath.

This will be the last update in this long string of mini posts, which all started back in August. There's still a lot I want to write about more in detail like all the supplements, med and devices we've tried and used during this time--what worked and what didn't. So, instead I'll try to write up a new post soon summarizing all our thoughts and experiences of this ordeal. In the meantime, I'm extremely thankful for Misty's recovery!

7.2.2014: Silly boy...

As we get ready for the big Fourth of July weekend, I wanted to take a moment to share a funny thing (sort of) that happened last weekend. We were out and about shopping and dogs were left home alone...nothing unusual. What normally happens when we return home is, we can hear Jasper barking to greet us even before we park our car in the driveway. So, we thought it was a bit odd when all was quiet on this particular return and when we unlocked the door, there was only Misty waiting for us. You have the understand that this NEVER happens at our house--if anything, sometimes Misty may decide that it's too much trouble to get off the couch for us may be hard of hearing and miss us come in, but Jasper has never missed his greeting by the front door, not once. So, of course we panicked and started to look for him, imagining something terrible has happened to him. We quickly worked our way through all the obvious rooms and places but did not find him, and that really scared us. We were calling out his name and was about to search the backyard next when we heard his muffled bark coming from the little toilet room in the master bathroom, the furthest back part of the house. We opened the door and he popped out all distressed and happy at the same time. He wagged and rubbed himself all over us while letting out little whimpers for several minutes before finally calming down. We gave him lots of kisses and hugs and let him take a well deserved nap on the couch while we tried to figure out the mystery.

exhausted little pup

We had no idea how he got himself in that predicament, but after couple of hours of resting, Jasper was all back to himself and he even reenacted the scene for us--we had him follow us into the bathroom and he had no hesitations or fear, so that was a good sign. We watched him as he sniffed the floor so we figured he must've followed a bug or something in the first place and that's when we also noticed the door slowly closing on its own. Well...I did put some oil on the door hinges not too long ago because it was squeaking and I guess that lubricated it too well. Now, the door did not close all the way, so I went out and called him to come and that's when he slapped the door shut with his paw in his effort to open it...mystery solved! We felt so bad for the little guy, having been trapped in a dark little room all by himself for who knows how long (we were gone for about three hours), but it was really kind of funny at the same time...what a silly boy!

6.19.2014: New breakfast menu

After returning from the San Diego Marathon, we discussed over how to change up our diet now that we're no longer in training and our bodies certainly don't need all the extra calories and carb. So, one of the first changes we've made was with our breakfast. During training, it usually consisted of bread or rice with eggs, a banana, a glass of almond milk and/or orange juice. In our effort to cut down on calories and to just go back to a more simple and light eating, we decided on fruit smoothies. The summer is really the perfect time for this, as fresh fruits are in season and easy to come by. So, we took a little trip to Costco and our local farmer's market for all the necessary ingredients.

ready for the blender!

kale, superfood!

The beauty of a smoothie is that there's really no set recipe to follow--you can add just about any fruit or vegetable to your liking, throw in some yogurt for thickness (and a dose of protein), and there you have it. I like to sweeten my smoothie with some mango--fresh if at all possible, but a little mango nectar is also good (and less messy). I was a bit weary about adding the kale (or any other green vegetable), but to my surprise, it was actually kind of refreshing. I also thought it would be very time consuming and fussy to be making smoothies in the morning, but it's really a lot quicker than cooking a conventional breakfast, and cleanup is also minimal.

quick and easy breakfast, and good for you!

We've now been doing this for the past 2 weeks and I think this new breakfast routine is here to stay for a long time. Right now, we're doing the strawberry, blueberry, banana, kale and mango smoothie, but we're also excited about trying some of the other superfood like acai and chia, in the future.

6.16.2014: Post San Diego Marathon

Returning to life and blogging after a little marathon hiatus...It's been 2 weeks since the San Diego Marathon and I'm finally starting to feel like myself again. This was our 4th marathon and it was the hardest and the worst one to date. It's a bit of a let down since we had the best training ever and yet the results don't reflect that, unfortunately.  Well...as in life, that's just how it goes sometimes--it's not always about the results, but the process. Not withstanding the ridiculous course planning by the Rock 'n' Roll franchise (I won't even go into that), the biggest factor in our shortcoming was the relentless heat. Going into it, I knew it was going to be tough, but even so, I underestimated the power of the Southern California sun by miles! (Pun intended.) Plus, the other 3 marathons were all during the fall with a nice 50 degree weather, so I guess my body just wasn't ready for a summer marathon. There's a reason why all the big races are in the fall...lesson learned.

nasty sun burn!

unexpected chafing spot where my sweat-drenched shorts rubbed against my skin.

Not only did it wipe me out during the run, but it's impact on my body was quite long lasting, definitely longer than any other times. This recovery period was also a bit odd in that, whereas my legs recovered much easier and quicker than the other 3 marathons, I was debilitated for the first time with a weird vertigo symptoms affecting my hearing and balance for well over a week. Initially, I thought it must be from dehydration and electrolyte deficit, so I loaded up on water and Gatorade, but then after a week and still not feeling 100%, I self-medicated with 3-days course of penicillin and that finally did the trick.  So, I presume it might have been some sort of sinus bug? Who knows...anyways, I'm almost all better now and can resume my life. Though I suffered through this marathon, it was still a great experience and I have no regrets. Now on to the next adventure!

5.15.2014: The hunter strikes again

Just as we thought things were quieting down after Misty's health scare last week, we had to deal with another sad misfortune...this time in our backyard. Jasper's biggest joy in life is to hunt...this we cannot deny. It was a curious discovery when he let out his first little howl as a puppy even before he learned to bark, and we have learned since then that he is indeed a part hound, most likely a coonhound. Over the past 10 years, he has managed to hunt down half a dozen chipmunks, couple of squirrels, couple of birds and has cornered one giant sized opossum before I frantically ran after and managed to pull him away. When he's outside, he has zero interest in anything else other than looking for things to hunt...even at dog parks. I'll never forget the day when he ran through the wooded edges of a fenced dog park and came out in the open with a proud kill in his mouth for all dogs and dog owners to see! What followed in the next several minutes is just like a scene in a movie--us chasing after him while repeatedly yelling "drop", and other dog owners looking on, some with a mild shock on their faces...perfect.

At almost 10, he has shown very little signs of slowing down, both in his speed and in his enthusiasm. We have long since accepted this unpleasant behavior of his and can only stand aside and cheer and pray for the underdogs to safely escape their fate each time we open the door to the backyard, but for today we hold yet another animal funeral...

so sorry, little chipmunk.

we made him pay his respects, but he was already looking for his next prey.

5.7.2014: A big sigh of relief

We took Misty in for her routine annual checkup last Friday.  As well as needing her vaccinations renewed, we also wanted to check on a lump on her leg we found recently. When the doctor took a look, she raised immediate concerns and wanted to do a biopsy to rule out a malignant cancer. The other possible suspects were either a weird skin infection gone awry, or a benign tumor. We left the vet's office heavy-hearted, with Misty's leg bandaged up and with a supply of antibiotics. Although we tried to remain positive, we spent the rest of the weekend feeding our worst fears with hours of internet search.

After we returned from her vet visit, all bandaged up but in good spirits.

Well, we finally heard back late last night and thankfully the results of the biopsy show that it is a benign mass with a possible secondary infection. Words cannot express just how relieved and elated we felt! For anyone who's had a dog go through a similar situation, I'm sure you can relate.  When a dog has been with you since it was a puppy and has been every part of your life for the past 10 years, he/she really is family, no different from a child.

Both my dogs have been healthy for the most part up to this point, and it's so ironic that right after celebrating her 10th Birthday in March that we are faced with this first real health scare. I know these "incidents" will be more frequent in the future, and maybe the next time we won't be so lucky. I'm going to try hard and not think too much about the future, but instead concentrate on cherishing the time I DO have with our dogs...and yes, Happy 10! Project will go on!

Is it possible though to ever prepare one's heart for the eventuality that awaits?

"let's stay awhile..."

Instant mood picker-upper

It's Friday!  I should be in a much better mood, but I'm not...maybe it's the crappy weather we've been having. On mornings like this, I spend a few minutes (ok, sometimes a lot!) browsing through the Animals category on Pinterest...instant therapy!  How can you not feel better looking at those bundles of cuteness?  Here's just a quick sample of it (obviously, I do not own any of these images).

Enjoy, and happy Friday!