Carmella Gets Neurological Referral

Today the phone rang. It was Jocelyn from Dr. Norwood's office calling to let me know the paperwork had been completed for Carmella's referral to Ga. Veterinary Specialists. It had been a long time coming and I was relieved that finally we would get to the bottom of the myelin damage causing her constant jerking and atrophy of the leg.

As it turned out transportation was really the biggest barrier because I had only two people I could ask and finances and health problems were preventing one of them from driving more than two trips, and the other one's job prevents her from going until later in the day, and even then only on Thursday and Fridays because she takes work home with her three of 5 days every week.

The policies dictating when GVS does certain things narrowed it down even further, but finally after several hours of vascillation and negotiation we came up with a workable plan and set the date for March 18th at 11:45 AM. Carmella will see  veterinary neurologist that day for an exam and most likely will have to come back another day for the MRI and any other tests.

I spoke on the phone with a very nice woman who told me that although they usually don't do this it's possible that something can be arranged the same day once I get her in there and talk to the vet if the radiology people can fit her in that day. This has taken so long to arrange that it would be nice to get it all out of the way in the same day, especially since I won't be picked up for several more hours after her exam.

Apparently they will put her under general anesthesia during the MRI so that she won't move, and it takes 2-3 hours because the MRIs they use for dogs are less powerful than the ones used for humans so it takes longer to get all the pictures. The neurologist might order other tests and will give me a price quote ahead of time once it's established all the tests she's going to need.

Since the time I called over a year ago when Carmella needed the CSF procedure they have added a new neurologist that used to be an intern and decided to specialize. I was thrilled to hear this, as the other one wasn't very interested in helping Carmella before. I hear this one is very open-minded, so that is who I made the appointment with.

I took some really cute pictures of Carmella tonight. As she often is she was chewing on something in many of them.

For some reason she seemed to be particularly hyper tonight and wanting to chew on my arms. I threw a rubberized dumbell for her to fetch that she'd stripped of the outer surface long ago, and I played tug of war with her for awhile until we both were worn out.

Hopefully she'll sleep well tonight after all that exercise and won't jump off the bed at the crack of dawn as she sometimes does when I'm not awake enough to get up.

This morning was one of those rare days that she stayed curled up beside me until around 12:00 noon. I needed the rest anyway after the long hours I'd worked the day before getting a wedding order completed.

This morning I wasn't feeling so well and needed to stay in bed until the pain in my back, stomach, and legs subsided.

I had also stayed up around the clock one night getting a bunch of my jewelry ready to go to a store. I am going to prepare another batch this month also in hopes that I can make a decent amount of money this month. There will be alot of money to raise given the upcoming medical expenses for Carmella.

I see it is 3:30 in the morning already so I'll get this posted and then get some sleep and promote this entry later on today. If any of you find it in the meantime please feel free to post your comments! If you aren't yet following and you would like to keep up with Carmella's progress please do so. Things should be getting very interesting in the coming weeks and months!