Saturday, June 09, 2007

Update

Stella didn't pull through. I said my goodbyes and had her put to sleep yesterday morning. She was just too tiny to fight off the disease, and there was no end to her suffering in sight. It was the right thing to do, but I still cried and cried and cried. I still can hardly talk about it without getting upset, so I'm going to leave it for now. Thanks for all your warm wishes and prayers.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Need some hoodoo, praying, raindancing - pick your luck charm...

This has been an emotional roller coaster of a week. My puppy Stella, who was the picture of health on Friday, took a turn for the worse on Saturday, and it's been downhill ever since. My new vet re-tested her for distemper, and this time it came back positive. I immediately burst into tears, because the prognosis for young puppies is not good - like 5-10% survival rate. We've been visiting the vet daily for anti-viral, antibiotic and immunity booster injections, all with a good bit of hope early this week as she was still active and eating, and wasn't vomiting or having diarrhea.

But as the week wears on, the news keeps getting worse. Today we learned her cough has turned to pneumonia, and she's stopped eating anything at all - not even cooked chicken breast (her favorite). In a fit of desperation, I made chicken soup, doggie style (no spices) tonight, crushed her antibiotic tablets into a powder, mixed it all together, and force fed her with a syringe. I do the same with water every couple of hours. She hates this, and has started looking at me warily when I come towards her bed with anything in my hands. She can hate me for now; I think she'll forgive me if she pulls through this.

I haven't slept in days, as her wheezing scares me half to death, and thank goodness I have understanding bosses. I've spent a good chunk of this week working from home so I can take care of her and they've been totally understanding about it.

Anyway, it's probably too little too late, but any prayers, happy thoughts, magic, rabbits feet, genie lamp wishes, rain dances, voodoo charms, pixie dust - anything - would be welcome right now. This poor little baby is so sick, and she needs all the help she can get.

Here's a pic I took of Stella in the cab on the way home from the vet today: