November 19, 2016

White Dog asked, "how come things always happen on the weekend?" I smiled and just shrugged. In our house we call it the "Why do plumbers...or furnace guys...or (fill in whomever is needed at the moment) need a personal life" syndrome. Or vets. Why DOES Dr. Julia need time to do HER laundry, run HER errands, play with HER pets?

Especially when Trixie was in need.

For the past 10 days of so Trix has been battling what we thought was dry skin and a couple of hot spots. We have brushed her and applied relief and given baths but nothing has helped and she has become more and more obsessed. Not even Benedryl calmed her fixation for long.

Then Thursday she developed little bumps on her ears, a rash. By Friday night she was covered head to toe with looked very much like chicken pox in humans. Sadly our vet's office is closed on weekends.

I asked around and got a couple of excellent referrals to a tiny office that had Saturday and evening hours. The vet heard my story and we made an appointment for first thing this morning.

She was attentive to Trixie's story and asked good questions about the events that have been unfolding. We did skin scrapings from several different areas of our Girl's very itchy body and drew blood for an extended blood panel.

Our concern was mange and importantly, skin conditions that might be contagious to the entire White Dog Army.

While doing a very thorough exam crawling on the floor for Trixie's comfort, the vet found a lymph node that seemed large which we agreed she should aspirate and send out.

Then we waited while her team did the lab work. Thankfully, no mites were found. For now we are treating the rash as a bacterial skin infection. And the lymph node dissolved when the needle was inserted into a splash of blood; it seems that it was swollen and irritated at Trixie's licking and chewing at her body. We will check again at followup but for now, the lymph system is not in question.

We all had a long talk with Miss Trix and were clear that as long as she took her meds and did not chew that we would not make her wear a cone. BUT if she found she could not control her licker...her fate would be sealed.

Tonight our big beautiful girl received a cool water lime and sulphur sponge bath along with an antibiotic and prednisone. In four days, she gets a medicated bath. So it will be for the next three weeks unless the bloodwork (which we should have on Monday) suggests the need for a different routine.

The house brings back memories of college chem lab and Sachi is following our tired overwrought Trixie as thought she were wearing an aphrodisiac...I am hoping it will begin to work magic of a different kind.