Wed., Apr. 11, 2012 - Vet appointment

Today we had an appointment with the Air Force base vet for Hardee to get some new antibiotics.  The drainage and the smell coming from him is pretty bad.  We have tried almost every antibiotic available, and we are running out of options.  The 2 antibiotics decided upon today were his usual, Clindamycin, and the new one, Doxycycline.

If these antibiotics don't work to help control the smell coming from Hardee's mouth (where the tumor has busted through the hard palate), we will have to sedate him, get a sample of his nose drainage, and send it off for a culture and sensitivity.  The lab will grow what is in his nose and then test for what antibiotic works to kill/control it.  Hardee has been on so many antibiotics for so long, we hope there is an antibiotic left that works.  We could be dealing with a super bug.

Hardee is still bleeding off and on (mostly on).  To control his pain, he gets a pain pill every 4 hours with 2 at bedtime.  He's had quite a few reverse sneezing episodes lately that are coming more and more often.  He cannot settle when these are happening and has to wander, mostly outside.  These can go on for well over half an hour as we follow him around.  I have taken to giving him some Valium to help stop the episodes and help him settle down and sleep.

The vet today agreed with me that it is not his time to leave us.  She said that every time she has seen him, you would never even know anything was wrong with him.  If she didn't already know about his cancer and if she hadn't seen what she did inside his mouth today, she'd have a hard time believing that anything was wrong with him. 

Hardee looks great but is a couple pounds over this normal weight, though the vet thought he looked fine.  He weighed 50 lbs. today.  I thought his weight would come down once we got his thyroid medication at the right dose but that hasn't happened.  Could be because we give him whatever he wants because it just doesn't matter anymore.

We are going to SoCal for the first time in 5 weeks for an agility trial this weekend.  We are tired of waiting around for Hardee to leave us, and since he hasn't, we've decided to regain some normalcy to our lives and see if he feels up to running.  Every time we think the end is close, Hardee rebounds and decides to stick around.  We've promised he can run until the end, so if he wants, he can run.

We're still letting the handsome one dictate his path with us.  We'll keep him around as long as he wants to stay.  We still hope for clarity when the time comes to release him.  Until then, we'll make sure it is all about joy and all about Hardee.

Here's some photos of Hardee taken the beginning of March (one with Thompkin, his tortoise).  Wishing you all a great weekend!