Selfie Sunday and an Update – 6/25/23

Thank you, Lola, and hello to all of you! I wanted to give you a brief update to let you know how we’re doing. Two and half weeks ago we celebrated one year in our new apartment. Time seems to have flown and crawled at the same time. I finally have all of my furniture, and all of my artwork hung up. I did a final declutter, and everything is now organized. It’s a good feeling! 

The girls are very happy here. It was a tough transition, but they finally settled. They love the views, the breeze off the water, the ducks, boats, and everything else. They have a comfortable routine and enjoy having more room to run around. 

I still go on the counter, even though I’m not allowed to.

One of the most challenging tasks has been finding a vet. We’re now on our third veterinary hospital since moving, which has been difficult because both Lola and Lexy have been to the vet several times. 

In December Lola injured her eye playing with a feather toy. She had an abrasion on her cornea which took a few weeks of eye ointment, and a few trips to the vet, to heal. The vet found a lump on her belly at this time, but luckily it turned out to be just a lipoma. In the meantime, we had to address her high calcium levels. One of the vets we saw, who was very good but unfortunately left the practice, did a lot of research and recommended a change in her diet. I always approach these recommendations with trepidation because the girls can be extremely picky and the last time we did a food change they both lost a lot of weight. We gave it a try with a very slow transition. 

The new food is Hill’s Metabolic, and I’m happy to say both girls are loving it. The best news is that Lola’s calcium levels were normal with the last ionized calcium blood test! The vets were worried about the possibility of cancer, but with these last results, her diagnosis is now idiopathic hypercalcemia. Her upper respiratory issues are stable, and she still cycles throughout certain times of the year when she’s more sneezy and snotty than usual. She did have two rounds of antibiotics because the stress of moving triggered a URI, but she’s doing fabulous now. 

Lexy, who has always been the more stable one healthwise despite her kidney disease, has had some issues lately. I noticed she was losing weight, and I also noticed a change in her coat. Her skin was more dry and her coat always looked unkempt, no matter how much I tried to brush her. At her six month checkup, the good news was that her kidney levels were fairly stable, but her white blood cell count was extremely high. Our new vet decided to try antibiotics for two weeks and recheck the bloodwork just in case she had some type of infection. 

The follow up blood draw showed only a very slight decrease in the white blood cell count, so the vet is concerned about lymphoma or possibly leukemia. (We could also be looking at IBD as well.) We went ahead with an ultrasound (which she had to be sedated for because she was very stressed out.) The results were very concerning. Lexy has significant inflammation in the intestinal tract, slightly enlarged lymph nodes, cysts on her liver, and something going with the spleen. And of course, we already knew her kidneys were compromised. Lexy is now 15, and I didn’t want to put her through the stress of an endoscopy and possible chemotherapy. (She’s also extremely difficult to pill, so getting any chemo meds in her orally would be almost impossible.) 

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