Im still here!!!

Its been a rough few weeks here.  It all started with 2 weeks ago I got a colonoscopy.  All I could think about was getting something to eat when I was all done. But when I woke up, I had the worse sore throat Ive ever had in my life.   I told them my throat was killing me. And they just kept saying , "we didn't do anything that should cause your throat to hurt".  Nothing helped. I drank 3 cups of water before I left. Sucked on candy on the way home. I had my son stop for a soda on the way home, no help at all. We went straight home instead of getting a pizza like I had planned. By the time I got home I was crying. Ive had mono and strep throat a couple of times and none of it hurt like this. WTH????   We had some left over pain medication at home and I took it. By the evening, I finally felt better. The next morning the sore throat was gone but now I was hoarse.  That lasted a week. Weird huh?   Before the end of the week we went to the Annual Faerie sheltie picnic.  Java's breeder has a picnic every year at her house and everyone who had a puppy from her is invited to come hang out.  My husband went with me and I dropped him in Cincinniti, OH to visit with his family.  It was a terrible drive. Pouring down rain and terrible traffic. 13 hours in the car and I finally made it to the hotel.
 We all just hung out and talked. I don't think my dogs really like going to this. They don't see the point. They wont run around and play with all the dogs, like everyone's  elses dogs do.

This isn't a very good picture but here are Java's siblings. One is missing.

Miley's spent most of her time looking a the sheep.

This was a Shetland ram that was a "show" ram. So he wasn't scared of dogs. 

This was the only lamb. Very cute!!

We had a good time. Then on Sunday, I woke up with a bad headache.  I tried all day to get it to go away and finally broke down and took Imitrex.   I thought I didn't drink enough water, so I drank lots of water Sunday and wore sun glasses all day too.  Monday, woke up  with the same headache. Weird.  I drove home Monday. Tuesday I woke up again, with the same headache.  I took the dogs for a walk. Came home and I was freezing and had the shakes.   I took my temperature but didn't have one. I laid down and went to sleep. When I woke up, I felt horrible. My whole body ached so bad. I took my temperature  and had 102 fever. (I had take 800mg of motrin for a headache at 11am and then went to sleep).  I went to the kitchen and tried to take some Tylenol but thought I was going to vomit. Then I felt like I might pass out, so I laid on the floor.  Ive never felt this bad before.  I told my son he needed to take me to urgent care. He drove me and dropped me off at the door. I walked it and you have to sign it. I wrote , "fever, falling down and nausea".  I could barely write. I went and laid down on the chairs. They call me back and ask me about falling down. I told them I didn't fall down. Then I told her I meant to write "feeling bad" not "falling down'. Of course the "falling down " thing followed me. Then next person asked  me about it. I told them I didn't mean to write that and I meant I was feeling bad. The my son says, "why didn't you tell me you fell down?". Ack!!!   Finally that got straightened out.  So my fever was 103, my WBC was elevated with highs Segs, which showed some type of bacterial infection. Urine was negative, strep was negative and no Flu.   So they gave me antibiotics and pain killers and told me to come back if I get worse. The next day things got worse. Diarrhea added to the misery.  So lets just says things were pretty bad for the next 6 days.   Today was the first day I actually could leave the house and not feel like death.  Still cant be to far from a bathroom but otherwise Im much better.  I truly think I had salmonella poisoning.  I called my doctor Friday trying to get an appt, but they were short staffed and didn't think they needed to see me. I told them I thought I had salmonella poisoning but they didn't seem to care.  So I don't know if that was it or not but it sure seems to fit the bill.   Anyway, Im finally feeling better. Im sure if I was 80 years old and had that, Id be dead.  Im not kidding, it was that bad.  When you are taking narcotics every 4 hours for pain and its dooesnt slow your intestines down at all, things are bad.  My poor dogs just sat in the house for 6 days.

In other news. I took Java a couple of weeks ago to have her left shoulder ultra sounded. She has a small tear in the muscle and in the tendon.  So 4 weeks of rest and then she will get another ultrasound. Hopefully it will be healed.   
Took Miley back today for her eye recheck.  No new divots on her cornea but some pigmentation. So we will try to add another medication and see if it controls the pigmentations.  She said they are around the edges of her cornea , not right across it. So it shouldn't be effecting her vision. She will see her again in 2 months.  Miley also saw the Kidney doctor right before we left for our trip.  She is taking amitriptyline for cyctisis.  It has helped. She isn't waking up anymore at night.  On the discharge paper is said, "Unexpected results from Amitriptline"  I guess it usually only works in women and cats for cyctitis.  But who cares , its working for Miley. Its kind of making her not as playful. Her and Java haven't played together in a while. I tried backing off the medication, which increased her energy but then she started waking up at night to go the bathroom again. ugh.

Last week was my last full week off of school. And I was sick!!  This week  and next week I have to go in and help with registrations and vision and hearing screenings.  So much for vacation.  Life goes on.

AKC trial

I went to Perry Ga for an AKC trial.  I just went last weekend to an USDAA trial.  I ran 5 runs by noon time in USDAA.  AKC 2 runs and they were FAST by 12noon.  Ugh! ( This post will probably be negative so you may want to skip it.)   I usually don't do trials so close together but it just worked out that way.
Wednesday was for Ex/Master dogs.  So that day wasn't bad.  We didn't run to well.  Miley's theme for the day was going wide.  She did Q in T2B.   Java was off course.  I had her checked by the a vet at the site after her first two runs. They couldn't find any sore spots.  She ran nice.





Miley was slow coming out of the tunnel on Thursday's jumpers run. I thought it was weird.  When we were done, I noticed she had a dirt mark on the middle of her face, between her eyes.  It wouldn't brush off.  When I watched the video, her jumping looked off so I didn't run her in standard.  Someone told me the next day there was urine in the tunnel. Ugh!!  I had to wash her face that night to get the stain off her face. (But lets worry about the jump bars, see below).

Java was fine on Wednesday. She acted normal.  Besides going off course she seemed fine. (she had weave pole problems every run. None last weekend) I had her checked after her standard run on Wednesday.  You can see she goes down a little on the left side turning after the jump after the dogwalk.   But they couldn't fine anything wrong or sore.  The next morning she ran Open Fast nicely. She Qed and came out of the ring and jumped onto the table that held course maps. I had put her treats on top of the table. No problems with any of this.



But as the day progressed she started acting weird.  She didn't want to walk down the few steps to the ring.  No limping. No dropping bars. She looked like she was running nicely. But a thunder storm was coming.  She is still freaking over that. We play lots of games when she has been acting nervous over thunder storms.  I thought maybe it was the thunder storm bothering her.  I took her to the trial the next day.  Again she didn't want to walk down the steps. She didn't want to go for a walk. No thunderstorm now. No rain.  When we walked down over the road, they have these metal pieces in the road. They must over electrical lines. They make a weird noise when you step on them. She didn't like them at all. She would stop short or go around. Even Miley didn't have a problem with these things.  So I decided to go home. Something is wrong with her and I don't know what. I called an left a message with another rehab vet to check her and see if they can find something wrong. Ive pulled her from all trials.


Ok, so this is my big complaint.  On Thursday , there was an AKC rep at the trial.  Then I noticed them holding the jump poles and opening the ends of the jump poles. They are the Lunch the Dog jumps with poles. The pvc pole is inside a plastic outside sleeve. That way you don't have to paint or tape the poles. Then I notice them changing out all the poles with the old  pvc kind. They didn't have enough poles  to do all the jumps but most of the jumps. I asked a club member what was going on. She said the judge is complaining to the rep that the poles are to heavy and not dropping. She can hear the dogs ticking the bars but the bars don't fall. WTH???   The Q rate in 16 inch jumpers the day before was less than 25%. What was that not low enough for her?  Bar were falling. Miley dropped bars. I know several of my friends dogs dropped bars.
Then this really bothered me. This lady's dog , when he was done running, would run straight at the judge and barking. Mean barking. Then turn off and start running at her again. The dog did this in both rings. The judge is in the middle of the ring and the dog leaves its owner and runs across  the ring. Neither judge  whistled this dog out of the ring. Can you believe it??  The one judge stopped walking several times when the dog did this. She was walking over to the tunnel to fix it. So this was more than half way across the ring.  OMG??  really. The owner calls it his "victory lap", I call it aggression.  Yea but lets worry about the bars not dropping.

Wordless Wednesday

All these medical problems

 This weekend I went to my sister's house in Va. Beach.  We had a good time just hanging out.  Walked on the beach, went shopping and out to eat. Fun!!
When I got home Sunday night. Guiness just looked off to me in his back end.  I asked my husband if he ran around a lot today. He said no. The only thing that was weird was he tried to jump the three steps onto the deck and his back end went out from under him.  Over the next couple of hours his back end got worse, he couldnt get up onto the couch and it would fall out from under him was getting down. All I could think of was he had a tumor pressing on his spinal cord.  I figured I would take him to the vet in the morning. I woke up at 2am, Im not sure why. I checked Guiness and he was worse. He couldnt settle down and now all his legs weren't working right. He would sometimes fall down. I know it couldn't be a tumor progressing this fast. He couldn't rest.  I was rubbing him, trying to get him to calm down and I found a tick on him.   I pulled it off and put it in the freezer.   I started researching wobbling and ticks in dogs on google.  I came across tick paralysis.   It starts in the rear legs and progress forward.  Then effects the diaphragm, esophagus and heart. They dog can die. It said to take them to the vet right away.  So I took him and the frozen tick to the emergency vet. I told them I thought he had tick paralysis. They took him right back.  The vet came and talked to me. She said that she agreed he had tick paralysis but that I already did what needed to be done, remove the tick. After that the dog starts to get better.  She said usually when the dog gets to them, they cant walk at all. She  also said usually they have to shave the dog to find the tick but since I already found it, that didn't need to be done.  She said he would back to normal in the next 12 hours.  By 7:30am he was already so much better. By the end of the day, he was back to normal.  Wow was that a scary disease.

Java hasn't been quit right either. Ugh!  So she was checked by the rehab vet on June 10th and she couldn't find anything wrong.  On June 19th, I took Java to the field to work. She didn't run around and play chase with Miley before hand. She and Miley just laid under the trees while I set up the course.  When I called her out to work, she was limping. WTH??   So I didn't work her. The next day she was find. We didn't do anything but a small walk in the morning. That evening, I took her and Miley for a walk in the neighborhood. She was fine in the house, through the garage, down the driveway and when she hit the street, she had a huge limp. WTH??   There is nothing in her pads or feet.  I don't know what is going on.   On and off , since the end of May, she has been scared of thunder.  But then goes out and uses the bathroom and pouring down rain.   She seemed better, then last night she was out in the back yard and a huge thunder clap came, and she ran in scared again. Ugh.  So I played toys with her to try to get her to forget it. It seemed to help.  Anyway I took her to the rehab vet again on June 26th.  This time she felt that Java's left front leg has more lateral motion in it , then it should.  It also popped when she was doing different things with it. She didn't show any signs of pain. She had full ROM of her shoulder without signs of pain.  So the vet thinks she has subluxation of her left shoulder. Then it could be happening when just walking and the she is sore for a little bit. She wants me to  do underwater treadmill and swimming with her to build up her shoulder muscles.  (I really trust this lady but Im just not sure of this dx.  I cant really find anything on it  on the internet. ) Today I took Java back into the regular vet. I had them repeat her blood work and do tick test on her just to rule that stuff out.  I don't know what to do. Should I just go with it, or try to investigate further??  I don't know.

 So we've been going to the river everyday and Ive been making Java swim. I also make them walk against the current, like an underwater treadmill. No one likes it. LOL

Miley seems to be doing well on her medication. She is able to sleep through the night now. Yay!!!

Stephanie is at college taking summer classes and working.  She has had a UTI. She took a course of antibiotics but she was still having symptoms. So I told her to go back to the school clinic.  She went back and she still had an infection.  They gave her Macrobid. Its an antibiotic that's been around a long time. 24 hours later she calls me and she is having chest pains.  I had her take 2 tums to see if that would help.   When I got off the phone, I looked up Macrobid. OMG!!  There is a huge warning on the medication under side effects:
  "CHRONIC, SUBACUTE, OR ACUTE PULMONARY HYPERSENSITIVITY REACTIONS MAY OCCUR WITH THE USE OF NITROFURANTOIN."

Also heart: "Changes in EKG (e.g., non-specific ST/T wave changes, bundle branch block) have been reported in association with pulmonary reactions"

Holy crap.  I called her back and told her not to take any more of the mediation and call the doctor right away. The saw her right away and did an EKG. It was normal. They told her she could never again take the medication.  They had her stay in the clinic for a while, gave her some other medication, then let her go home.  It took almost a week for the chest pains to go away. She went back to the doctor yesterday and still has a  UTI, so they started her on another antibiotic. This time we looked it up before she took it. It just had regular side effects.

So hopefully things will get better around her and everyone will stay health.