My Sweet Jingie Bear

My little girl, Jingle, is having a very rough time.   I had to take her into the vet the other night for impacted anal glands.    At first I thought she had diarrhea but then I finally took a look at her little bootie and realized she needed to see the vet.   When I called to make an appointment they were skeptical because she wasn't doing the usual biting at her little bum or scooting along the floor.   I was able to convince them it LOOKED bad and they stopped arguing.

So, I take her in Tuesday night and she's acting perfectly Jingle.    I had more than one person comment that she was prancing.    After they examined her they had to express her anal glands and said she had a pretty bad infection.    She was given a steroid shot and sent home with antibiotics.    When I woke up yesterday, she seemed like her backside was hurting her and she wouldn't eat anything.   I had a hard time getting her to take her pill with cheese.

When I got home last night she didn't seem any better and she seemed hot so I made an appointment.  She just kept sitting down and didn't really want to walk around.    On our way to the appointment, she just laid in the passenger seat and didn't have any desire to sit on my lap which is what she usually does.  Once we got there, I had to hold her the whole time.    When I would sit her on the ground, she'd fall back on her rump and then her little front legs would splay out.    She reminded me of a newborn deer on ice.

The vet examined her and her temperature was 104.1 and she immediately noticed her stability issues.   She examined her to see if she had some sort of disease that causes balance issues and found nothing.   She examined her spine and legs and found nothing, so she decided x-rays would hold the answer.    Guess what?   They didn't - she only had some arthritis but that didn't explain the walking issues she's having.    So they decided to take a blood panel and it'll come back in a few days so I'm hoping that will come back with some answers.

The thing that's so weird about this - both of her symptoms should have been taken care of by the treatment she received on Tuesday and the medication she's already on.  If she was already on antibiotics - imagine what her temperature would have been without it.     Plus, if she were having the walking issues due to pain the steroid shot she had on Tuesday should have prevented or alleviated that.    The vet kept saying that the symptoms were "weird" or "confusing" ... that's just a scary thing to hear.  :(

When I came home last night I looked up the normal temp range of a dog and it said if their temp is under 99 or over 104, then it's an emergency situation and the dog has to see a vet immediately.   That's scary.

Jingle came home with a liquid infusion under the skin along with some steroids.   It's very upsetting because it came out of the blue and they seem to have no idea what's going on with her.   I couldn't sleep last night because I was constantly checking on her.   At one point, I woke up and she was on her back and I was terrified because she never sleeps on her back.     I ended up sleeping in until 2:30 today!   I couldn't believe how late I slept, but last night was a restless night.

Send some positive thoughts to my sweetie girl.