Whew!

It has been a crazy 10 or so days, folks!  Our little Annie has been quite sick.  It all started about 2 1/2 weeks ago.  I had worked that Friday and when I got home, I took her out to do her business but she wouldn't come back up the front steps when she was done.  Then when she got in she wouldn't walk up her little steps to the couch.  So instead of waiting and it turning into something really bad, I decided to be proactive and take her to the vet right then.  Well, they have hired an additional vet at the office so we saw her.  She looked Annie over and said she couldn't detect any problems with her back and she didn't show any signs of pain, so we just needed to watch her over the weekend and if anything else happens to bring her back in.  So I left thinking I was being dumb because I rushed her to the vet as soon as she was acting a little funny and next time I should just keep an eye on her.  Over the weekend she didn't get worse but she still acted funny when it was time to go up and down little steps.  By the time the next Thursday rolled around, I decided to take her back to the vet.  Something was wrong, even if it wasn't her back.  I requested to see our regular vet because he knows Annie's history and he's very aggressive with treatment anytime she shows signs of back problems.  He checked her out, decided it was in fact her back and he gave her some injections as well as some oral meds.  By the time Friday evening rolled around she was acting much more like herself and we were so happy to have caught it before anything got too bad.  Tim and I went to dinner that evening and went back home to catch up on our Tivo'ed shows from the week.  About 9:15 or so, Leo decided he wanted up on the couch with Tim and Annie.  What he didn't realize was that Annie had buried a chewy under a blanket.  Well, Annie thought he was trying to get her chewy so she turned real fast to get it and when she did she hurt her back.  She yelped, lost control, fell off the couch, and couldn't walk at all.  She was just dragging her back legs behind her.  I rushed over and held her on the floor while telling Tim what phone numbers to look up to call.  I wanted to avoid going to the after hours animal hospital because the last time we took her (before she had to have her surgery last year) the vet told us it was her knee so he didn't treat her.  So we went almost 36 hours of Annie getting progressively worse because of a misdiagnoses, leading us to have to have surgery.  Anyway, there ended up being no way around having to go to the after hours clinic.  Thankfully it was a different vet on call that night.  She was really good and gave us a muscle relaxer to start her on and told us to see our regular vet first thing Saturday.  So we were the first ones at the office Saturday morning, we saw the vet and he started a very aggressive treatment of shots and oral meds.  I needed to bring her in every 3 days for injections in her back.  Fast forward to this past Friday night/Saturday morning.  She's doing better waking.  We have a little "walkabout" that we use to take her out to do her business and we can let her walk around to use her leg muscles for a few minutes inside.  Suddenly at 2am Saturday morning, Annie wakes up throwing up.  She throws up a couple of times each episode and every episode is hourly until 6am.  I took her to the vet, they look at her, give her some meds for her tummy and tell me to meet them Sunday morning with a urine sample so they can see if she has an infection.  In the meantime, she continues to throw up anytime she eats or drinks.  We met them Sunday morning and when they do the test they find incredibly high amounts of protein in her urine.  So we have to bring her back Sunday evening for them to do a few blood tests on her.  Her liver and kidney enzymes end up being way out of control so they decide to keep her over night for IV fluids and meds since she can't keep anything down.  Well, here we are a few days later and she's still at the vet getting IV fluids but she is eating on her own and keeping it down.  I should be able to pick her up tonight as long as she continues to do well.

I should add that our washer and dryer are being repaired and have been out of use for the last 14 days.  So Annie had thrown up on both sets of sheets, our comforter, and we had no clean towels since we had used them for cleanup.  I worked all last week and neither one of us got much sleep each night because Annie was shivering and whining all through the night.  It just seemed like a lot has been going on at once and we are doing so much on very little sleep (talk about preparation for a baby, huh?!).  We are so glad she is doing better and we can't wait to have her back healthy and herself tonight!