Update on Michelob (from Rick)

["Yanna Jorni" <goldk9s@cox.net>]

Here is Rick's update from today on Michelob's current status.  He is
definitely acting very SPACEY right now and is having many "accidents"
in the house.  Poor guy.  Needless to say, we are not getting much sleep
at night, having to keep alert for him and taking him out to go potty
every 90 minutes or so.

Yanna

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Reid [mailto:rickreid@cox.net] 
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 10:51 AM 
Subject: Update on Michelob

Hi everyone,

Thanks again for all of your positive thoughts for our Michelob. It
seems to be helping. 

I took Mich to our vet yesterday and he was happy with Mich's progress.
Most of the petechiation was gone. We did another CBC and platelete
count of which I just got the results. His platelets are back to normal!
Yippee! He has a raised white blood count and a slightly below normal
hematocrit. Our vet said that it was pretty normal to have those
results. So we are keeping Mich on the high dose of pred for 3 more days
then cutting his dose by 50% for the next 14 days. The vet wants to do
another blood work up again next week.

We are hoping that he continues the remission. The vet explained that we
must keep a real close eye on him because if he starts showing any of
the signs from before it could be very hard to get him to go back into
remission. So he is still resigned to being a couch potato for a while
now. And we will continue having to take him potty every 1 1/2 to 2
hours 24/7.

I will be very happy when we get him off the pred. I have had other dogs
on pred before and know how much they have to drink and pee. But Mich
has become rather "spacey" on this dose of pred. He is on 80mg. He on
several occasions did not even let us know he need to go potty and just
let loose in the house. He also has given us the look a few times that
he doesn't know where he is or what he should be doing. Kind of like
dogs that have cognitive disorders. We are hoping that this is just a
reaction to the pred and not a sign of what started this whole problem
in the first place.

So please keep him in your thoughts. I will update you again when we
have further info. Probably next Thursday.

Rick

Rick Reid, Yanna Jorni and The Golden Menagerie - Jake, Chelsea,
Michelob and Austin