A Sudden Goodbye

I will be writing more about Ginny later in the week, but I need time to gather my thoughts and process what has transpired. Our lives have changed dramatically in a very short amount of time.

It was a very difficult day and we are heartbroken.

Happy Tails to you...

Ginny Update #2

My phone rang at 2:50 am and I almost leapt out of my skin when I saw the emergency hospital's number on the screen. The vet was calling to let us know that Ginny's blood pressure had dropped to a concerning level and they wanted to address that. They were running some tests, but didn't want to proceed with any treatment before letting us know what was happening. We told her to do what she needed to do for Ginny and that was the end of the call.

About 20 minutes later, my phone rang again. The first call was bad enough, but getting a second call so soon afterwards caused my heart to fear the worst. Fortunately, the vet had just looked at some of Ginny's test results and her recent blood work was indicating anemia, so she wanted our permission to do a blood transfusion. Of course we agreed and that was that last information we received for about 15 hours. They had told us that "no news is good news," but I'm not sure it's in my DNA to not worry when someone I love is hurting.

I couldn't sleep after those two phone calls; I tossed and turned for a few hours and then finally decided to get up and keep myself busy. It was a long day of waiting for news.

Two happy distractions...since we canceled our trip to NYC this weekend, we were able to have dinner with my best friend and her husband last night and then today, we were able to go to the first hockey game of the season that our two godkids were playing in. Being around people we love makes a world of difference to us because we feel supported and understood as we worry about our girl.

After an anxious day, the vet called a short time ago with an update for us. The good news is that Ginny responded well to the blood transfusion. The not-so-good news is that her catheter - which was supplying all of her intravenous medication - had to be removed. The site (her jugular!) developed an infection and the decision was made to switch over to insulin injections and oral meds. As you might imagine, it's difficult with the comically short little Dachshund legs for a catheter to be effective and remain in place, particularly because Ginny is not sedated in any way, so now she'll be monitored as she adjusts to the new administration of medication. She's drinking just fine, but only eating a little, so they'll watch that with the change in medication as well.

As for us, all we can do is wait. Tomorrow her care will return to the internal medicine team (over the weekend, the animals are under the watch of the critical care veterinarians), so perhaps by the time we speak with them tomorrow, things will be looking up.

Here's hoping for good news with the next update and no more scary phone calls in the middle of the night.

another cute pic of her from last week

family

Happy Tails to you...

Ginny Update

this pic is from last week,
but I love it and I obviously
don't have any pictures of her
from today

We spoke with the emergency vet last night for the latest info on Ginny. The internal medicine vet did an ultrasound of her abdomen, and they put the catheter in to administer all of her fluids and medication. She apparently handled all of these things nicely and was also making friends with the techs taking care of her. Overall, it was good news. Her glucose was still incredibly high, but we'd been told it would be a slow process to regulate that, so we went to bed feeling somewhat hopeful.

C and I called this morning to check on her and it sounded like she slept well overnight and was tolerating all of the medication fairly well. She also ate a little bit this morning, which was a positive sign.

We were supposed to go away this weekend, but that's no longer happening. Our plan was to take the train to NYC tomorrow morning and then return home on Sunday night. We had tickets to both Aladdin and The Lion King, as well as Pixar Putt, which looks to be a super cool Pixar-themed mini golf experience. We were very much looking forward to all three - we'd never seen Aladdin on Broadway; we had seen The Lion King on Broadway, but in Las Vegas; and of course, Pixar Putt just seemed like a fun thing to do.

In a totally unrelated turn of events, we got an email last week that the Aladdin production had been shut down due to covid, so we would be getting a refund for those tickets. While I was pretty disappointed, we figured we'd be able to see it another time and I was still excited about the weekend.

not the best news,
but it ended out working out
in our favor

In light of what's going on with Ginny, we're obviously not going anywhere this weekend.

Fortunately, the cancellation policy for Broadway is very flexible right now, so we canceled our Sunday tickets for The Lion King last night, and because we'd purchased business class seats on the Acela train, we were able to cancel those tickets as well. The only money we're out is for the tickets to Pixar Putt; I waffled on buying the cancellation protection and ultimately decided against it when I made the purchase, but it's not that big of a deal. Clearly we're happy we were able to cancel the hotel, show, and train, but even if we hadn't been able to do any of those things, it wouldn't have mattered because there's no way we'd leave Ginny right now.

C worked at home alone all day with no Ginny, which is a first in as long as we can remember and certainly since the pandemic began and C's been working from home. I went to school and was basically a nervous wreck, employing the "fake it 'til you make it" approach to pretend I was fine.

We ended up speaking at length with the internal medicine vet this evening and the short version of that conversation is this: Ginny is comfortable and being monitored around the clock. Her Cushings disease has resulted in diabetes, as well as some other issues, but her numbers/values are slowly headed in the right direction. We are hoping she'll be able to come home on Monday, but we're really just taking it one day at a time. There are lots of little details and some pretty big milestones she'll need to reach before there's even a discussion about her being discharged, but we are cautiously optimist right now.

More to come in the days ahead.

Happy Tails to you...

Emergency Vet Stay

We took Ginny to the vet yesterday because she's not been doing well for the past ten or so days. She's been panting and breathing heavily, excessively drinking water, being very choosy about eating, and not moving around much. Perhaps the most noticeable change in her behavior is how clingy she's been with me. I've written before about she's always been a little standoffish and how she is very much C's dog, but lately, she's been all about letting me hold her and snuggling beside me.

Overall, the physical exam yesterday didn't really reveal anything, so they did some blood work and sent us home. Today, I got a call around 12:45 with the results and they were not good. Our vet recommended we take her immediately to and emergency/24-hour vet hospital because Ginny's glucose was dangerously high. This is not unheard of for dog's with Cushings disease, but there were some other things that were concerning the vet (elevated values and bacteria) and she felt that Ginny needed to begin treatment right away before the situation turned into something we wouldn't be able to come back from. She called the emergency hospital we've been to many times before and made arrangements for Ginny to be admitted, and called me back to let me know they were expecting us.

I left school and C canceled all of his afternoon meetings and we left home with Ginny around 1:30. The emergency hospital is about 30 miles from our house, but add in traffic and construction, and it took us an hour to get there. They took her in right away and we had to wait in the car for a few hours. When the emergency vet called us with an update, she outlined the treatment plan, which involves a stay for several days, with lots of medication and monitoring, in hopes of getting things under control. She also told us we could say bye to Ginny before leaving, so they allowed us to go into the building and into the back where the patients are.

I fully admit that it was a selfish move on my part because I'm sure it upset her to see us and then have to watch us leave. But I just needed to see her beautiful little face.

So we're home and the house is far too empty and far too quiet. We'll look forward to every update we get and can't wait for the one telling us we can go and get our girl.

my heart

look at those eyes

these two

feel better, sweet girl

I hate seeing this

Happy Tails to you...

Life Lately September 2021

At school, September was a complete crazy month, but at home, it was pretty quiet. We went to the final seven states in our 50 States in 2021 quest and then took a quick trip to Minneapolis, but other than that, there really is nothing to report! School has been extremely challenging and I've been pretty emotionally exhausted as a result, so I'm happy to bid farewell to September with cautious optimism that October has to be better! What I do have is a collection of cute Ginny pics to share!

kids at school did a portrait of me

gift from an awesome teacher friend

puzzle #1 we completed this month

puzzle #2 we completed this month

still pretty sure she is part cat

she shared my drink...

and ended up looking like this

she was being cute in the drive thru

so the McDonald's employee gave her a cup of whipped cream

she was super excited

how much further could she shove her head into that cup

she refused to believe the cup was empty

whipped cream coma

this is the face I have to leave each morning

we got some takeout and put it in the back seat -
Ginny decided to take a bite out of the bag

she's magical

Happy Tails to you!

MLB Stadium #40!

We had a quick weekend getaway! It was only 45 hours in duration, but included four flights, nine miles of walking, and our 40th MLB park!

refusing to make eye contact with me
bc she was mad we were leaving

she had her ears back
(a classic sign she is highly annoyed)
and was completely ignoring me
as I tried to say goodbye to her

We left our house around 3:20 am on Saturday morning and our flight was unfortunately out of DCA. I've already shared on multiple occasions my opinion that National is one of the worst airports in the country, so I won't go into that again! Our flight to MDW was fine; we had a girl sit in the middle seat between us, but there's nothing to report on that front. However, on the second flight from Chicago to Minneapolis, we had a very irritating man with a humongous bag sit in between us, so I was happy it was a very short flight.

I generally like Southwest Airlines, but over the years, I really feel the quality of their planes and their staff has seriously declined. I'm certainly a fan of their customer-friendly cancellation/rebooking policies, as well as their two free checked bags rule, but they need to get it together when it comes to monitoring what people count as carryon luggage and personal items.

I've written before that something I really like about the discount airlines like Frontier and Spirit is how strict they are when it comes to stuff like that. Southwest is not strict. People bring all sorts of bags and suitcases that are clearly larger than what Southwest claims is allowed and the gate employees and flight attendants just turn a blind eye to it. There's no way on earth that the guy between us should have been allowed to count his bag as a carryon, and under no circumstances should he have been allowed to put it at his feet. So ridiculous. That would never have been allowed on Frontier or Spirit. So say what you will about those airlines, but the rules and restrictions are applied consistently. And frankly, Southwest charges a lot more money than either Frontier or Spirit. Can you tell that I was not impressed with Southwest this past weekend?!?

When we landed, we took a lyft to our hotel to check in and drop off our backpack, but to our surprise, our room was ready and it was barely 11:00 am! We spent some time wandering around the city, but almost everything was closed. It felt like a ghost town where all roads were under construction. Since we'd gotten up so early, we decided to have a nap before the baseball game, and were pleasantly surprised to find that the weather had greatly improved during that time!

Mary Tyler Moore

check out the red star

construction and road closures everywhere

Around 5:15, we took the skywalk to Target Field, which was less than a ten minute walk from our hotel and super convenient. The fact that the Toronto Blue Jays, our home team, were in town was a nice coincidence, because we didn't choose this weekend based on the opponent! There was an hour-long ceremony before the game to induct a player into the Twins' Hall of Fame, so the actual game didn't start until 7:00 pm, and had we realized this, we probably wouldn't have gone to the game quite so early! We had really good seats and beautiful weather, but given the excruciatingly slow pace of baseball, we decided to stay until seventh inning stretch before going back to hotel. The Blue Jays beat the Twins, which made us pretty happy!

The stadium itself is very nice and definitely in the top 20 of the 40 we've been to. Of the four we've been to in 2021, it ranks second after Globe Life Field, where the Texas Rangers play (which is one of the best in the entire league!) and is much nicer than either either of the stadiums in Cincinnati or Atlanta.

On Sunday, we slept in and then went out for late breakfast and to walk around city a little before we had to head to the airport.

We took a lyft back to MSP and all I can say is that airport security was awful. It took more than half an hour to get through security (and please keep in mind this is a small airport) and everything about security was very disorganized. Of course when I went through the scanner my bun set off an alert and the employee tried to come right at me and I said what I always say - "NEW GLOVES" - because I don't want to be touched by gloves that have patted down who knows how many other people – I didn’t allow that before the pandemic and I'm certainly not allowing it now.

We went to the Minnesota Wild bar in the terminal, which was pretty cool bc the front of the bar was made up entirely of hockey sticks, and preseason hockey has gotten underway, so we are super excited about that!

We lucked out with a having an empty middle seat between us for the flight from Minneapolis to Chicago, but we ended up with another very annoying man sitting between us for the second leg of our journey. While he didn't have an enormous bag with him, he did fidget the entire flight which made it difficult for me to sleep. Nonetheless, we made it home just before 12:30 am and someone was pretty excited to see us! Thank you to my mom for watching Ginny while we were away!

we wish we could have
spent time in Chicago!

she was watching the door
in anticipation of our return

We had such a fun weekend and now have only two more new stadiums to visit for us to be completely caught up – the Miami Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals! That is, until one of the mlb teams decides to build a new stadium!

Happy Tails to you!