[Dailydrool] Young Charlie suffers some more

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

I got a call this morning from the vet who's covering for my  
vacationing vet today. She said we needed to return today so young  
Charlie can have a little more blood drawn. Apparently yesterday's  
test came back with a low glucose level. The vet said that can happen  
for a variety of reasons, stress being one of them. Oh, Charlie  
wasn't stressed during yesterday's blood drawing. Oh, no. Not at all.  
So to be on the safe side, the vet wanted to retest Charlie's glucose  
level (I keep wanting to write glucosamine instead of glucose) and, I  
guess, see how much more she could stress him out.

Charlie was absolutely thrilled to hear about this when I told him.  
Took forever to get him from the car into the vet's office because he  
kept trying to use the "gotta sniff this" excuse to delay going in.  
Yesterday he followed the vet happily into the back room, and I could  
hear the vet telling him, "You'll go with just anyone, won't you?"  
This afternoon he was less willing to follow the nice lady back  
there. He went, but his tail was down this time instead of waving gaily.

They also checked Charlie's poop to see if he has some other kinds of  
worms. He doesn't. His poop is clean. But I'll tell you who's going  
to have worms, it's our Elsinore. My mother's block has an awful  
stray cat problem, and they all seem to have decided that her yard is  
their one big communal litter box. For awhile there they were just  
ruining her mulch in the front yard. But now they seem to be fouling  
the backyard as well because both times Elsinore's been over there  
this week, she's come home smelling like a litter box. I've checked  
her over, and she hasn't rolled in anything, but after she's had a  
meal the odor goes away. So she must be eating the stuff. The woman  
who's feeding all these strays--and not spaying or neutering them  
because, even with a low-cost clinic available to her, she says she  
can't afford it--doesn't vet any of these cats, so there's no telling  
what parasites and other yuck are in their yuck. Delightful. Of  
course, even if these cats were spayed/neutered, that wouldn't stop  
them from using my mother's yard all the time. But there might be  
less of them using it.....

I hadn't realized there was a large nerve near one of the veins. I  
did know about the sting of alcohol, though, because I got allergy  
shots for years. I'll bet there was a combination of the two going on  
yesterday--young Charlie feeling stung and having his nerve  
accidentally hit. There's no reasoning with him about staying still  
and having it all over with much more quickly and painlessly. I asked  
the vet if today's blood draw would be a BYOM event (bring your own  
muzzle), but she said she thought it could be done without, and it  
seems she did okay. I heard one blood-curdling screech from the back  
room, and then the vet returned with an upset basset and all her  
fingers still on her hands. She said she got a drop of blood out of  
him before he wrenched free, but that's all she needed.

Once again Charlie's glucose level is low (it couldn't possibly be  
from stress, could it?). It's 70, which the vet said is slightly  
below the normal range. But he's not drinking or peeing excessively,  
so she's of the mind that slightly below normal may be normal for  
him. For the moment now we're in a wait-and-see mode, waiting on the  
thyroid test results from Michigan State's vet school lab. The vet  
said it could very well be an underactive thyroid that has young  
Charlie behaving in a worrisome underactive way. She said that lately  
they've been seeing more dogs who are presenting with just one of the  
symptoms for underactive thyroid instead of two or more.

I'm hoping that underactive thyroid is what's going on with him.  
That's a condition that's easy and inexpensive to manage, and once  
the dog gets on the right dosage, all is well again. All is not well  
right now. Today I realized that we used to have toys scattered all  
over the house. Charlie would pull one toy out after another to bring  
to me to try to entice me to play with him ("If she doesn't like this  
one, then maybe I'll go get that one and she'll want to play with me  
with that one"), which would result in me having to pick up his toys  
every evening so we wouldn't trip on one during a midnight bathroom  
visit. His toys have stayed in their basket for a full month now.  
He's also stopped meeting his daily quota of one naughty act a day. I  
don't have to put the puppy gate up in front of the bedroom door  
because he's not trying to jump on our bed anymore. The toilet paper  
hasn't been shredded in ages. This is just sooooo not young Charlie,  
and I can't believe it's because he's suddenly decided to be mature.

Only two more weeks to find out about the thyroid test......

Elizabeth