This is a short diary to let everyone know how Blackie is doing. Her tale is diaried here. We just arrived home. We spent a lot of time with Blackie. Her blood pressure is up. Normal BP for a pootie is 100 and yesterday morning hers was 60 and she had a very low temperature. Today her blood pressure and temperature were normal. She is on an IV and is getting lots of pain medication, antibiotics and medicine to stabilize her BP. They were able to remove the BP cuff along with one of her IV's. The concern at this point is her red blood cell count which is still at the low end. Luckily for her the clinic was able to find more blood in her blood type.
Follow me for more on Blackie's journey to recovery.
If she continues to improve they may move her from the special oxygen crate to a regular crate tonight. Her red blood cell count is also up. The transfusion helped and they located some more type "B" blood for her if she need another one. "B" is the rarest of pootie blood types.
Blackie recognized us. My husband sat and petted her for the longest time and she curled her tail. He talked to her and told her to get better so that we could take her home. Swishing her tail she put her little pootie toes around our fingers to let us know she knew we were there for her. She was kneading our hands and purring up a storm. Blackie loves to purr and today it was a loud purr. She is definately better than she was yesterday when we were afraid we might lose her.
The technicians told us that having us visit her has been very important. Pooties and puppies want to know that their two-legged family members are there for them.
The next twenty-four hours will be critical. The staff at Northwest Veterinary Specialists have been wonderful and they are aware that Blackie's progress is being blogged here at Daily Kos and that many Kossacks are asking about her progress. They think that blogging about her status is pretty cool.
We are definately keeping our fingers crossed. We have had the cell phones with us, hoping that there were not any calls from the clinic in the middle of the night. The love and healing energy that has been sent her way has definately helped her recover. She is our baby and we care about her so much and the support everyone has shown is appreciated by all of us.
When we know more we will let everyone know. We are going to visit her tomorrow but before that we will be calling the clinic to find out her progress.
Thanks again to everyone from Blackie and her parents.
Update: We just spoke with the vet. Blackie is off oxygen and is eating dry food. They may have to do another transfusion to help her red blood cell count. She is more alert. The one thing and they will know more in a couple hours is whether they may have to give her more blood pressure medicine. We are keeping our fingers crossed. If she continues to improve she may be able to leave tomorrow. Please continue to send the healing energy her way. We are going down to Portland to visit her and we will let everyone know what is happening when we get back.
Thanks again to everyone from all of us.
Update 2: We went to see Blackie today. The drive was pretty awful since it is raining like crazy out here. But we wanted to let Blackie know how much mojo she is receiving from her "Daily Kos Fan Club".
She is eating dry pootie food. The vets thought she may have required another transfusion but she did not. The hardest thing for us is that she still require chest taps to remove the chylus fluid while she is healing. She was originally supposed to have a chest tube but since she did not tolerate that, it was removed.
The other thing that is so maddening about this is that
"When the cause cannot be identified after appropriate diagnostic procedures, it is called "idiopathic chylothorax." More than 50% of cases are in this category."
More detailed information about this can be found at Pawprints and Purrs
There is an outside chance that if she continues to slowly improve she may get to come home tomorrow evening. While this is very stressful for the two of us, my husband reminded me that two days ago Blackie was in very bad shape.
There is one other thing. Her left lung was damaged by the fluid in her lungs. It is doubtful she will ever have full lung capacity in her left lung. Sometimes this can happen with this crazy disease. But if we can give her more time we will be grateful. What she needs now is a lot of mojo, crossed fingers, healing energy and of course, lots of crossed paws.
Again from all of us we thank the Kossack community for the love, mojo, and support everyone has sent our way.