Carmella-The Night Before

Carmella goes back to the vet tomorrow. Today she seemed to be battling back and forth with her illness, a few hours looking better but then another few, worse.


She ate all her food but still does not feel like drinking water. She will drink yogurt juice more enthusiastically, and I tried to scoop as much of that out for her as I could. She needs all the nutrition she can get right now.






It is pretty well confirmed now that she does have Distemper, but she is fighting this thing with everything she's got.






There was a period around 3:00 pm today when it looked like she felt alot better, but then when I checked on her this evening around 6:00 I noticed that her paws are starting to get crusty on the pads. This is not a good sign and it means disease-progression. If you have never seen a dog with this symptom before here is what it looks like.

I was flabberghasted that this appeared in only a few hours, and I knew right then that I had to document it. Maybe this will help other dogs get early diagnosis and treatment. Just this morning her pads looked fine. This is terrifying.

I faxed over detailed instructions developed by the specialist on the procedure and then spoke to the vet on the phone around 3:00 pm and told him I think we need to move on this ASAP. He agreed. Tomorrow I'm bringing her in between 8:00 and 9:00 AM and she'll be with them all day so that they can take the bladder smear and hopefully by then the doctor will have the life-saving serum to give her. It took some searching to find a vet supply company that carried it, but I found one in Georgia after some researching online. I hope it can be shipped fast. There is no time to waste.


Carmella has been peeing alot and seems to need to go alot more often than most puppies at this age. Tonight the diarrhea came back after she ate her dinner, probably within 5 minutes after she'd eaten. I took her out on the leash right away and no sooner had she found a suitable spot, she went.


The stuff she coughed up tonight was slightly greyish-brownish white (like the color of gravy made with flour), not greenish as it had been before.


So far I have not had any jewelry sales yet since this all began. If you have not done so I hope you'll take a look at my Etsy store at http://giftbearer.etsy.com/ and make a purchase. I now have three pairs of earrings in my Carmella Collection, but if you can't afford those I also have more modest-priced pieces available as well, and I will be adding more jewelry of various types.


 I hope to God my money holds out through this process. It looks as though she may have to take many more trips to the vet. Since I am not able to drive because of my own medical condition and friends cannot always take us, we must sometimes take taxis. The short distance can still be rather expensive; much more so than the cost of gas itself! Eeek!