Took Dolce to see Dr. Adams on Saturday. All morning I was whispering to him that today was going to be a scary day for him, but that he didn't need to worry because he was coming home at the end of the day with us. Brownie had what we thought might be a BB in her leg, so we took her to get checked out along with Dolce.
We met Mindi at the vet and she was finally able to see how he's doing, which made me so happy become I'm so proud of the progress that he's made to date. When we got in with Dr. Adams I mentioned that Dolce has developed a cough over the past week and I was concerned about it. Dr Adams mentioned that he was going to ask about that because when he listened to Dolce's chest, his heart murmur has gotten louder. We were told that a heart murmur has a rating of 1-6, 1 being the best and 6 being the worst. Dolce is a 4. We knew going to the appointment that Dolce's jaw would be x-rayed to see how he's healing, so they took advantage the timing and also took some chest x-rays. We had to leave Dolce at the vet's office for about 5-6 hours, which I'm NEVER happy about doing...but I know he's in safe hands.
Since we had several hours to kill and Brownie with us we went to Santa Monica and walked near the pier...Brownie's first experience walking on sand. Then we went to 17th Street Cafe in Santa Monica and had some lunch. Brownie sat on my lap the entire time and was amazing. She is such a polite little one, doesn't beg or anything. We kept going back to the vet's office to check on Dolce and they kept sending us away. Eventually by about 6-7pm we were able to pick up our little Dolce, but not after getting some not so great news.
The chest x-rays show that Dolce's heart has enlarged, which means he's experiencing heart disease. How advanced, I'm not sure. It breaks my heart to think he has to go through this. Dr. Adams said that heart disease is manageable and that Dolce could live for several more years, but even so I hate that Dolce has one more thing to deal with. Dr. Adams has placed Dolce on a heart medication that will hopefully lower his blood pressure and make it so his little heart doesn't have to work so dang hard. At this point it's safe to assume that Dolce will be on heart medication for the remainder of his life. I wish I could fly around the Earth like Superman and make time go back so I could save Dolce a long time ago. I just hate that he's had to go through so much and here is just one more thing...it's all very frustrating. But then there are days like today where he is so full of life and happy. We packed up the car this afternoon to take everyone to the dog park, but before we left I realized that I forgot the water bowl in the house so I ran back inside to grab it. Dolce must have liked the smell of the smoothie that I just made to take with me because when I got back to the car Brett told me that Dolce stuck his head in my cup and started drinking my smoothie. Later on I found some of his hair in my cup...I didn't mind.
In one month we will take Dolce back to see Dr. Adams to see is the heart medication is working...I really hope it does the trick and makes it easier on our little guy. I get so sad to see him start coughing when he tries to run around or when he gets excited to see me. I just want to scoop him up and wave my magic wand....wish I could find where that damn wand is.
Oh and about Dolce's jaw, the side that was severely broken is taking its time to fill in and heal, but its to be expected considering how infected the break was. The other side looks good. At this point Brett and I will be giving Dolce a nightly mouth rinse to try and keep his mouth as clean as possible. We're hoping that if we keep it nice and clean it will help his bone heal faster, because that pin in his jaw will need to come out eventually.
Keep thinking positive thoughts for our Dolce...he's come a long, long way, but still has hurdles ahead of him.
No comments:
Post a Comment