Christmas Eve, 2008

We picked Gabby up from the hospital on Christmas eve.

Her treatment plan:
Fluids 3x a week - 250ml. We could do this at home or bring her into the hospital.
Benazipril for hypertension
Prilosec

We were going to wean her off the Prednisone earlier than originally prescribed, but she seemed to be doing better. We still had to limit her activity for 2 weeks, including no jumping on and off the couch. That is much easier said than done. Especially with a little dog who sometimes forgets her age and really tries to fly.

That's when the dr. said she could have a couple of months or a couple of years. He wasn't overly encouraging on the "years" part, but I guess it's better not to sugar coat things.

Little things that are said do stand out. The vet tech gave us (well, Cori) a demonstration on how to administer fluids. I can't bring myself to stick Gabby with a needle, so thank goodness for Cori! They gave us needles, but only a few. I asked about getting more, if they could be purchased in bulk. She said they could, but that they would come in a pack of 100. Maybe my grieving mind read too much into it, but the thought ran through my mind that she was discouraging the purchase of that many needles for a reason I didn't want to think about.

So for two weeks we took the couch cushions off the couch and put them on the floor. We have a sectional and it happens to have 2 cushions total, each of which are fairly long so it turned out it was actually fairly comfortable to sleep on. And that's where I slept.