Gracie Fascinated by Something
These days, our lives are pretty full with animal-related activities. Gracie seems to be holding on, she’s pretty happy and sleeps a lot. She is having some issues with her food interest (can you believe it) in the morning but that is largely due to her increased difficulty with gas and reflux in the morning. We head back to the vet on the 20th of February for a check up on her protein levels. She’s on ciproflaxin for the duration and that seems to have curbed the urinary issues.
A couple of weeks ago she had a groomer appointment after which she slept for 90% of the following two days. She had zero interest in her morning meal and woke only to go outside or maybe switch positions on her chair. This made me start to rethink our veterinary strategy. You may wonder, “veterinary strategy? what is that?” Well, I will tell you.
Her regular vet used to be at the veterinary office (owned by a large corporation) about a mile from our house. He has known Gracie since we got her. He performed her surgery last summer (remember Frankenstina?) and referred us to our specialist vet who has saved Gracie’s life and given us these three years. And, he was kind, gentle and not judgmental, which has been our experience of the other vets in that office. He moved to another office…in a suburb about an hour away. We were all set to go see him on MLK, Jr. day but canceled because there was too much going on and, probably because we had second thoughts about taking her all the way up there for veterinary services. We rescheduled for February 20th and after the sleeping and sleeping and sleeping of two weeks ago we decided that it wasn’t a good idea to travel that far.
The big thing about all of this is that Gracie isn’t getting younger or more healthy, as you know. It just started to seem ridiculous to imagine getting in the car with her when it was that time. I shared all of this with a dear friend who suggested a home visiting vet. What a novel idea. I didn’t know if they would have such a thing in such an urban area as Chicago but sure enough there are a few. We are going to ask our specialist if she knows anyone she would recommend, and we will set up an appointment. When the time comes, we want to know the person coming into our home to take our baby.
This may seem morbid, but I really want us to make all of these decisions now…while things are not dire.
For now, Gracie is fine. She’s sweeter than ever (or maybe I’m just even more appreciative of her) and more clingy. She (and we) appreciate all of your warm thoughts for her comfort (and ours).
Keep your loved ones close.
