Doggy details below. Be warned.
The results of the culture from King’s bladder infection came back today. It’s a stubborn nasty, so he’s been upgraded to the high octane antibiotics. First week in July, we repeat the culture, as well as do a blood test to check the thyroid levels. Depending on the results, we go from there. Best case–the infection was just One Of Those Things, and the thyroid med takes care of the wonky blood test results. Not so best case–we go on to test for Cushings.
I checked the Cushings article over at the Washington State University Vet School page. Damn, but there are too many similarities for comfort. I am hoping for the best, but preparing. At least the damned thing is treatable.
3 1/2 days of antibiotics + levothyroxine do seem to have helped, though. King is livelier in the mornings, and is playing with Gaby again in the evenings. He has become a finicky eater, however. He has gone off his old food completely, including the skin/coat oil and chewable joint meds. That meant I had to switch him to a new food without the usual gradual shift. So far, he seems fine, but it isn’t the preferred way of doing things. At least the new food contains probiotics to help his gut deal with the antibiotics.
In other news. MY ITALIAN TOMATO PLANTS HAVE BUDS!! One of the St Pierre and both Franz-I-Forget-The-Rest are sporting one bud cluster each. The Arkansas Traveler and Black Cherry, not yet, although I do see a promising something or other on the Traveler. The San Marzano is a maybe, but it’s the runt of the litter and still has a ways to go.
As you can see, we have a bit of weirdness going on in the raised bed this year.
A few carryovers from last year’s mesclun mix decided to go nuts. The Swiss chard (left) and the reddish leaf lettuce (center) are over three feet high and ready to flower. The red onion (right) has a couple of seed clusters…
…and the curly lettuce is sporting a few purple blossoms. Assuming none of these things are hybrids, I will have plenty of seeds for next year.
In other other news, I don’t understand Time Machine. It worked like proverbial clockwork for a few days in a row. Then I shut down the MacBook and restarted it, which you are supposed to do every so often to let various clean-up programs work. Reconnected to the backup drive like I was supposed to, and damn but TM didn’t work. Couldn’t find the backup drive. Couldn’t find the sparse bundle. I rebooted twice. Reconnected to the external HD repeatedly. No go. By the next day, I had finally decided to bag it and install the backup software that came with the external HD. Checked on a whim, and found that TM has decided to start working again. It’s been fine ever since.
I know my MacBook is old. It’s a late 2007 model, and it’s a coin toss whether I will be able to upgrade to Mountain Lion. Right now, it’s Not–this MacBook is just on the wrong side of the cut-off. I will have to buy a new laptop eventually, but between King, car maintenance, and some needed house repairs…I was hoping to put it off for a while.
As an aside, the external HD is a Western Digital with SmartWare backup software. Anyone out there use it? I ask because while I am glad Time Machine is up and running, I have heard it isn’t the end all and be all of backup systems. Any recs for better ones appreciated.
In baking news, much chocolate arrived today from King Arthur Flour. Bittersweet. Semisweet. Guittard’s unsweetened, which may find its way into some brownies this weekend. A chance to compare to Ghirardelli.
Hot today, close to 90F. Mosquitoes are back–I had to dig out the OFF! battery-driven repellant thingie. Stayed outside until the bats and the stars came out.
Assuming the antibiotics aren’t affecting things, the good news is that the finicky appetite is not typical of a dog with Cushings. Fingers crossed for the hypothyroid instead of the hyperadrenal…hypoT is a lot cheaper to treat!
I’m a little south of you and I’ve got some little green tomatoes starting already. I am hoping to get at least one red one from the bunch this year. Heat and squirrels destroyed my chances last year.
My tomatoes are only a little over a foot high, and they’re already budding. I swear this is the earliest flowering ever–I’d have to look back through the gardening posts.
I’ve already had to break out the insecticidal soap. Small caterpillars chewed up leaves on the Black Cherry in the raised bed and the St Pierre in the deck pot. The Black Cherry especially looks stripped. There are plenty of young shoots, so they should bounce back.
I debated setting up deck pots this year; the plants in the pots started out great last summer, but one good heat spell knocked them out. I don’t think they produced anything. But, I hate to toss nice seedlings in the compost pile. I will have to take care to keep them well-watered, and to move them into the shade on hot days.
Thanks for the good thoughts for King. Vet and I are both hoping that the hypothyroid and infection were what torqued his bloodwork. Hypothyroid could definitely be responsible for the fatigue and weight gain. The appetite issue started with the infection, prior to the antibiotics. The thing is, during her IBD phase, Gaby went off her food every time she became sick–she wouldn’t touch it, and I would be forced to switch her over to new food without any transition whatsoever. I think King associates his old food with feeling sick, which is why he won’t eat it anymore.
He’s been on Clavamox for 2 days, and ::knock wood:: he’s much better. He was on Amoxycillin for the week prior while we waited for the culture to come back–he’d have a good day, then a bad day. A good morning. A slow morning. He seems to have more energy now. Barking. He’s still moving slowly at times and shows signs of stiffness, and while that’s a symptom of Cushings, it could also be because he has arthritis in his hip and spine. He’s an old dog, and a lot of stuff is starting to happen. Dammit.