Doggie Update

For those of you who know our furry kids, I thought I should give an update on what's going on with big Jack.  We had been giving him insulin two times a day and switched over to a special kind of diabetic dog food.  After that, we just kind of crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.  We were also supposed to get his blood glucose readings ever hour or so to give to the vet so she could see how he was reacting to the insulin.  It was around this time that everything kind of started going in the crapper.  We discovered after a few days of trying to get his glucose readings that the reader (which we paid an arm and a leg for) was broken, so we had to send it back to get repaired or replaced.  While we were waiting, Jackson was just getting sicker, thinner and slower.  Once we got it back, we realized we only had a few test strips left and needed to order more of those before we could get his readings.  We FINALLY got everything we needed and once again started the process.  We had to do it on Matt's days off because I am terrible at drawing enough blood for he reading and it is really hard for me to do when taking care of the kiddos at the same time.  So eventually we got the readings to the vet.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that Jackson also woke up one morning with a very swollen leg.  Apparently he got some kind of infection and needed to be on antibiotics and anti-inflammatory meds.  Ugh.  The vet got back to us and said that his readings seemed normal, but that she was a bit alarmed that he was losing so much weight when most dogs GAIN weight when they get diabetes.  He also had been having some trouble getting up on things like the bed or into the car.  His back legs seemed to be going out on him.  So...back to the vet's office we went for more tests and x-rays.  We were pretty nervous- we thought he had cancer.  It turns out that he just has a nasty case of arthritis and needed meds for that and a higher insulin dose.  We were relieved our big guy is cancer free.  As I joked to Sue, he's a perfectly healthy dog.  Except for the epilepsy.  And the diabetes.  And the arthritis.  So now he's on the different dosage of insulin and medicine for his arthritis.  In another week or so we'll have to get new glucose readings to make sure the insulin is doing it's job.  Jackson seems to have more pep in his step, so we're hoping for the best.  We really can't afford for anything else to go wrong at this point.  Between all his medicines, syringes, needles, special dog food and testing supplies, it is literally costing us more to pay for him than it is to raise our children.  And that's not even including the cost of the vet visits!  Poor Matt has been having to work as many extra shifts as he can to pay for it all, and it's taking it's toll on all of us.  But we can't bring ourselves to NOT do everything we can for Jack.  So like I said, we're hoping we won't get any more curve balls thrown at us and that his body will respond well to what's being given to him now.  I'll hopefully be able to post some good news a little further on down the road.  On the brighter side of things, Margie is very healthy.  A bit pudgy, but otherwise great!

Max and Big Jack just before the diabetes diagnosis