Lava has been doing her part in getting us ready for this parenting thing we are about to engage upon and she’s been doing a bang-up of a job with it too.
It started Monday morning when I noticed a couple of bumps on her lower lip. I kept an eye on them and noticed that were getting worse and multiplying. Wednesday morning Noah and and I also discovered that Lava had crusted blood around her eyes. That set-off a BIG warning flag, so on the way to work in the morning Noah dropped her off at the vet.
Turns out the bumps were actually lesions and were not only around her mouth but also her nose, eyes, vulva and anus. On top of that, she was also running a low-grade fever, had enlarged lymph nodes in her neck and apparently was in pain. The vet was very concerned about how aggressive the infection was attacking her body and thinks our pup might have an auto-immune disorder. She took some biopsies, sent them off to a pathologist and Wednesday night Lava came home with a cocktail of medication. She is currently taking an antibiotic, pain killers, a steroid and an eye ointment (to keep the infection around her eyes from affecting the eyes themselves). We won’t get the results from the pathologist back until next week, which will lead to a diagnosis. Best case scenario would be Lava is just having a really back allergic reaction to something. Worst case is puppy Lupus, which only gives her about one year to live. There are several other options that fall between those two.
Wednesday night Lava was very much not herself. She was still coming off the effects of being sedated and was in pain/uncomfortable. We stayed home from bible study to care for her. She whined all night long and as a result neither Noah or I got much sleep.
Yesterday when I got home from work Lava was very happy. The pills appear to be working and making her feel better. She was jumping on me and ran around in the backyard. It was good to see her feeling more like her normal self. However, one of the side affects of one of the medication is increased panting. So panting is what Lava did all night long, loudly. If she wasn’t panting she was licking her cone (not sure why she does that, but it took makes a horribly disgusting and irritating noise in the middle of the night). She ended up being exiled from the bedroom to either the landing or the bathroom so Noah an I could attempt to get some shut-eye.
So yes, Lava is preparing us for parenthood by a) requiring emergency medical attention and b) leaving us sleep deprived. And I am very much looking forward to the three-day weekend where I can sleep-in and take naps. 🙂