Poor Simone

So, less than a week after Simone's allergic reaction, we ended up taking her back in to the vet because she had been getting us up every 3 hours during the night. An exam, bloodwork, and urinalysis later: she has a bladder infection. Poor puppy. How she got that I'll never know. They started her on some amoxicillin, which she was one for three days before the results of her urine culture came back letting us know that the particular strain of bacteria whooping it up in her bladder right now (Enterobacter spp) is resistant to that drug. So, last night we went and picked up her new prescription (Cipro). Gave her two pills at 6pm, and by 8:30, she was acting funny: sneezing, rubbing her head on the carpet, and "talking" to us. We initially thought she was being playful, and it took us another 20 minutes to see that her eyes were nearly swollen shut and it looked like she was trying to blow up a balloon. We called our vet's office, whose answering service patched us through to the on-call vet. Sure enough, Simone was having an allergic reaction to the Cipro. She had us give Simone three benadryl and keep an eye on her breathing. The swelling started to go down around 11pm, and she slept through the night (although I didn't). So, we'll try again with another antibiotic this afternoon, one that hopefully won't cause her to go into anaphylactic shock. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Allergic Reaction

We had a fun day yesterday. Went for a long walk down past the duck pond all the way down to 35th Street and trolloped through the wetlands and down the new boardwalk at Sunset Park. After we got back, we decided it was time to clean Simone's ears (a very necessary Sunday afternoon ritual), and we noticed that her right eye was bulging out of its socket. Needless to say, we were freaked out and called the emergency vet's office. They felt it was necessary to see her right away, so we all hopped into the truck and sped down Philomath Blvd. to the clinic. We were seen within minutes of our arrival, and it was determined that Simone was having an allergic reaction to some unknown stimulus. Her other eye was starting to look puffy, as was her mouth, and the on-call vet pointed out the hives that were appearing on her skin. They used a fluorescent green dye to check out her eye and make sure there wasn't a foreign body in there, and cleaned it out with saline and a Q-tip. Simone was really good and held still while her eye was poked and flushed. The vet said her eye wasn't scratched and didn't show any signs of injury, which was a relief. Simone was taken back into the treatment room for an injection of a steroid (fortunately not prednosone, the evil steroid that caused her so many problems this past fall) to control the systemic swelling taking place, and also a large dose of benadryl. Within an hour, her eye was nearly back to normal, and her hives disappeared. We were so relieved to have a definite diagnosis and then actual cure within the space of 30 minutes. After our last traumatic veterinary experience, we weren't sure we were ready for another!

Now, back to the futon...