New Journey / Off to a promising start

[Alison K]

Cody is now 8 weeks post-diagnosis. Today is August 1, 2016. On July 8 (a little over one month after he was diagnosed), his PCV hit 44. For the next couple of weeks, he was at 46 and 45. Week 5 saw a slight elevation in liver enzymes, but nothing to worry about and he has been taking his Denamarin as a liver protectorate since. I expect those numbers to go back to normal shortly. His gums are checked by me at least 3 or 4 times a day and remain pink (I’m slightly neurotic about this and he’s a little sick of me looking in his mouth but he’ll just have to deal with it).

We had a teeny tiny bobble this weekend with Friday’s PCV recheck (July 29). His number slipped from 45 the week prior to 41. Not a terrible concern, given it’s still in normal range, and the ladies that run this site all say “normal is normal is normal”, but I’m determined to stay as much ahead of this game as I possibly can so I had him rechecked on Sunday, July 31. It crept back up to 43.

I had assumed that the slight variation on the 29th was to do with the quality of the blood pull and/or hydration levels but I needed to know that the PCV had not dropped any more over the weekend as I headed to work on Monday morning. His first Prednisone reduction (33%) was exactly two weeks before this tiny dip in PCV. I needed to know that wasn’t the cause and if there was a trend being established, I wanted to nip it in the bud before it dipped too low.

Cody is alone while i’m at work, though I do go home at lunch every day and the dog walker comes 3 hours after that to walk both my dogs. That way, someone lays eyes on him at least every 5 hours or so.

Our journey continues and Cody is still on the positive side on the statistics chart. I fully intend to stay on that side.

[admin]

Hi Alison

This is such great news & you have done such a wonderful job with Cody – I confess I am the same as you (yeah, I know, despite my normal is normal is normal comment)- any dip in PCV of more than 4-5 points deserves a recheck to ease my worried mind! The TP (total protein) figure helps determine how hydrated/dehydrated they are, but we still like to make sure all is well. So listen here Cody, no more bobbles, however slight. We want a nice smooth bobble free run from now on, so Says Auntie Sheena, Worzel & Ollie xxx