Goldy update

[gategrrl]

Well, Goldy had his cardiac specialist vet appointment this morning 30 miles away south on the 405. omg. One hour of driving both ways. I am so beat.

Overall, he's doing okay, but all the diuretics were starting to negatively affect his kidneys, so we're cutting back on his Lasix dosage by one pill (he gets five during the day). The vet also said that his constant coughing is from some kind of lung disease, or problem, that would be difficult to diagnose--probably the treatment would be detrimental to the poor poochio. So, we're increasing his dosage of cough medicine. The stuff really knocks him out when it goes full dose. The constant coughing tires him out tremendously (I know how that is from when I've gotten bronchitus--nasty) and he doesn't get any steady sleep, and neither do we, so this stuff is terrific. Hopefully with the reduction of diuretic, the number of times he wets himself will go down.

He also has an open sore on one of his toes which the cardiac vet *didn't* look at--I'll take him to his regular vet for that, if it doesn't start clearing up soon. I've bought some stick-to-itself bandaging and a tube of antibiotic gel and some stuff to clean it out.

With the weather clearing up here (no rain for a couple of days) and sunny, he tends go out onto the back porch a lot more than he used to to sleep. He almost never went out in the backyard by himself when we first got him. He had to have someone take him out in the back and walk with him! The squirrels were getting fat and lazy in the back yard, but now they're starting to yell at him, now that he's out there more often chasing them. Heh. Right after he chased one two days ago, the squirrel sat up in our lemon tree, chittering and yelling at him in some very nasty squirrel language. Stupid creature didn't realize Goldy couldn't hear him, because his hearing isn't what it used to be!