Wizzer's World

If you have a few spare moments, send some good thoughts for Charlie. He didn’t have that great of a night. Yesterday the doc gave him a shot that was supposed to relax his stomach and maybe make him want to eat. We got him about 4 different kinds of food. He liked licking up the gravy but didn’t want to eat anything. Last night about 1am he threw up again and once more at 3am. After that I took him in and laid down with him on the couch. At around 8am this morning we took him in to have a Barium X-ray done. This way that can track along his digestive track and see if something is blocking it. This is being done right now. That procedure alone costs around $450. I don’t know what I am going to do if it’s any worse.

Please send him some good thoughts.

****Update**** 2:00pm EST
Just got off the phone with the Doc and he says that the Barium is traveling through like normal. They are taking X-rays every hour (Instead of every 30 min) and the next one is due in about 20 min. He said that it’s just entering the intestines and so far so good (at least as far as travel goes). He did mention that Charlie was a bit dehydrated, but I kind of expected that. I will keep you posted.

*** Update *** 7:23pm
Ok, it’s been a rough day. We have Charlie home now and I had a good talk with the doc. A few actually. You see I went straight there after work and they said they still needed to do the second series of blood work. The X-rays showed the barium moving all the way through his whole track. (I anticipate an interesting run to the litter box soon). The Doc did make note of an area with residual barium near the front of the stomach. He said this may (MAY!) be the barium attached to some sort of foreign body. It could be a string or something else, they weren’t 100% sure it was anything at all. They still needed another hour for the blood work so I went home.

This would be the point where I went in the back room and just let out a good cry. I am not afraid to admit it. I needed it after fighting it back all day with all of the repeated news. I have had Charlie for 8 years and he has such an amazing personality. He can tell when we are sad and comes to comfort us. He is always there for a good conversation. He will sit there on my monitor and watch me game or blog or whatever, just knowing that he is near.

We went back to pick him up at 6pm. The blood work was back and the news was mixed. On the plus side, it looks like there may be another cause for the vomiting and the loss of appetite that may not be a foreign body. The down side is that the test that was run was to measure the different chemicals in the body that indicate how his organs are working. The 2 chemicals that were off the charts are directly related to his kidneys. This could be an early acute kidney failure. There is a good side to this as well (how many sides are there?) The doc is really certain that we can help this. We are taking him back tomorrow for another round of fluid treatment and we have some special food specifically designed for this situation. (And Charlie even expressed an interest in it!)

We are home now and keeping a close eye on our Mister Charlie. I will update tomorrow with his condition.