Our Penny

It’s been exactly a week since we’ve brought Penny home from her recent five-day-stay at the vet. If you recall, her kidneys were having problems filtering toxins from her blood. Her blood-urea-nitrogen (BUN) levels were elevated to 107 causing a lose of appetite and extreme fatigue. Normal levels are between 6 to 20. We had no idea what we were facing when we brought her to the vet. We quickly learned that we were in a battle to lower toxic levels of nitrogen by flushing IV’s through her body. The process was slow. It took five days to drop from 107 to 52. We were hoping to reach 30 — but that never happened.

We returned home, Friday, January the 9th at 1500.

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Over this last week, we’ve struggled to find foods she would eat. Optimally, she should be on a special low-protein kidney diet (KD), but with her loss of appetite and the taste of that food, she won’t eat much. Still, we’ve had some success in finding a few things she would eat — always being mindful to search for things with a low protein content.

Regardless, Penny has not been able to keep anything in her system. It’s sad to see her strength fading. At times she shows interest in riding in the car, and she still responds to the green dot from the laser pointer moving across the carpet. She’ll make a few jumps at the door knob with some effort anticipating an exciting car ride; she’ll wag her stubby tail from side to side when she spots the laser dot. But her strength is continuing to fade as she’s not able to keep food down.

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This morning, we obtained current BUN readings. Our thinking was: if levels are low — we will deal with the eating problems. If levels are high, then preserving her life would be gloomy at best. Basically, if levels are high, 50% of her time would be spent with IV efforts to lower BUN levels, and 50% of her time back home in a weakened state — where those levels were sure to rise. The readings this morning were not good. They were higher than they’ve ever been — 130. Actually, the vet explained the equipment could only read levels upto 130; so we don’t know her real readings. 

It is heartbreaking to watch old age take it’s course over a pet you love; but this is our life right now. We’re facing a difficult decision, but we’ve made that decision. We’ve set an appointment for tomorrow morning to allow her to rest peacefully. Tonight, we’ll spend special time with her. If she’s interested, we’ll take her for a car ride, we’ll see if there’s something she might like to eat, and we’ll sleep with her all night. After that, she’ll be found in our hearts — forever loved and cherished.

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