Appetite Satiated At Last

Joey looks up from reading his emails and comments, Monday evening, August 30, 2010

The update is late, but the news is good!  Your 'Long and Short of it All' host 'Joey' has eaten food and water for over 24 hours now without any vomiting!  He doesn't eat much - it will take a few days to get him used to food again, but he's eating enough to slightly form his stools, and keeping it down without the aid of any anti-nauseants. 

Dad had a ruff morning, hence the late update - it seems that Joey has developed some "sludge of the gallbladder and mucocele" which is potentially quite bad, and after reading about it on several veterinary sites, Dad went off the deep end a bit and couldn't handle another issue with the boy, and couldn't muster up an update.  But after taking the day off work at the last minute to talk to the internal medicine veterinarian about it, all is slightly better, as the vet doesn't think it is a huge issue, it has not led to mucocele as previously reported, and Joey should be able to come home tomorrow.  Let's repeat that:  JOEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO COME HOME TOMORROW!   Lesson learned (again):  stop reading about stuff on the internet and making assumptions about things you know nothing about. 

His pancreatitis is resolving itself, and his amylase/lipase values are both now within normal range.  The ultrasound shows a better picture of the pancreas.  The sludge of the gall bladder is evidently not surprising based on the shape that his pancreas was in.

And this will brighten anyone's day:  when we arrived at the hospital today, the vet tech was telling us that she went to Joey's pen and there was blood all over.  A scary thought, yes, but it turns out that he was wagging his tail so much against the netting on the side of the pen, that it has started to bleed!  He now has a little white bandage taped on the end of his tail, poor little man.  The vet tech said he chased it in circles for a while, but he didn't seem to mind it so much when we visited him today. 

Meanwhile, Maggie has been staying at a friend's house this week - what with Dad working all day and then visiting Joey in the evenings for several hours, that's a long time to be home alone by herself.  Tonight she's at her first (and probably last) agility practice and will do some "fun runs."  She's a gal on the go.