September 5, 2017

White Dog and I went into the office to privately talk about YoYoMa's situation and not alarm the rest of the White Dog Army.

We went to see Dr. Julia this afternoon regarding the wound on his leg that was not healing and the new ones that appeared on both his back feet over the holiday weekend. With Yo's compromised immune system we do not take chances.

From my research I suspected he is experiencing a reaction to some element of his medicine cocktail and I pre-sent a few scholarly works to Cindy, Dr. Julia's Number One.

First we ran a blood panel and discovered that Yo's hematocrit number had dropped...not good for the anemia but still within the "do not panic" range at almost 35.

His White Blood Cell count was actually slightly down. "Kind of rules out my thoughts about an opportunistic infection," our great vet said. "No sign of it in the any of the numbers. Besides he IS on a pretty strong antibiotic."

We divvied up the task of looking at interactions, allergic reactions, long shot side effects while Cindy contacted the drug makers directly. The techs shaved the ulcerated areas which looked mean, but not infected. They are swollen and ooze blood. Wanting to protect from potential germs but also wanting good circulation of air, we opted to use children's socks to cover the area after first straying it with antiseptic mist.

We could find no match or signal flag information.

"OK, we are going to have to do this the hard way," Dr. Julia said. We went through his list of medications and stripped off everything except the most essential: prednisone, cyclosporine, doxicycline...and those we reduced to the lowest levels.

My heart was pounding at the dangerous detective game we are playing. These combination of drugs have done a pretty darn good job at controlling Yo's IMHA. He has been slightly up and down but never in the near death situation that led to two transfusions in the past.

Now we were stripping those protections away.

But we cannot allow ulcers to just open up and bleed without some idea of what they are and how to correct the problem. Constant blood loss and open infection-inviting wounds certainly will harm my anemic boy with a compromised immunity.

A rock and a hard place.

"You don't need to sleep at night," Dr. Julia said knowing my concern could not be abated. "I will call you at 3am to share any concerns or insights," I jabbed. "I know you will be up reading the journals and reaching out."

White Dog drew in a long breath. "I am not sure I like this," she told me. "No more than I," I agreed. "Needless to say we are going to be watching Yo like hawks and burning up all my resources to find some answers. He goes back to the vet on Monday...or before if need be."

WD looked me in the eye, "We will get this figured out without putting YoYoMa in danger. Believe in Dr. Julia. Believe in YoYoMa. Believe in the White Dog Army. And mostly, believe in your instincts, momma."

Dr. Julia is right. I do not need to sleep.