Thank you Julie for your wise and kind words. Your's and your husband's
logic about decision making is impeccable. Of course, I have been
second guessing myself about not taking Grace in to the vet. I think
she's slowly improving, but it's hard to tell.
As far as doing the biopsy on Mandy... In hindsight it appears to you
that you should have just tried steroids first, and maybe that would
have been the way to go. But what if you had tried the steroids, seen
no improvement, and then had to do further exploratories anyway? We
just never know. I spoke with Hideyo after she lost her sweet George.
She was upset at herself for having had to crate him the last days of
his life, (in order to administer meds). But what if she hadn't? She
would have thought that he passed because she wasn't able to give him
his meds! When we take on the responsibility of an animal we are put in
the position of having to imagine that we have control over these
situations. How else could we make any choices at all? Ultimately, we
know that we don't have the control we think we do. All we can do is
follow our best instincts, pray for guidance, do our best to not add to
the suffering of our loved ones and not add to our burdens by beating
ourselves up over the decisions we are forced to make.
Much love to you and yours my dear,
Nina
Julie Johnson wrote:
Dear Nina,
Healing wishes and prayers on the way for Princess Grace, and for you,
too. It's sometimes so hard to know what is best to do and we have to
weigh so many variables when making these decisions. My husband has
always told me (because I have to re-think and re-live every choice I
make!) that if you believe what you did was right at the moment in
time that you did it, it stands in time as the right choice. So much
of what we do for our animals (I think more so than making choices for
ourselves) is based on instinct, yet we've been told over and over in
many ways that instinct is wrong and we need to concentrate on facts.
I think as a culture we've learned to devalue our instincts. Right
now, I am wishing I hadn't done the biopsy on Mandy. They needed so
many samples and from so deep under her tongue, that the surgery for
the biopsy has left her tongue crooked and is making it that much more
diffult for her to eat. I knew that if it was an oral cancer that
treatment options were limited. If it was a granuloma it would have
started (most likely) to respond to steriod therapy. So why didn't I
just try the steroids first? I just have to focus on having done what
I thought was best at the time I made the decision.
I know that Grace could not be in better, move loving hands.
Love, Julie
*/Nina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>/* wrote:
Grace and I could use your prayers and good vibrations. She has been
feeling poorly the last couple of months. Usually when she feels
crummy
I put her on a round of Dox, and she feels better almost immediately.
Not so, this time. I put her on Dox and she didn't improve
significantly. I took her off of Dox and started the five day
protocol
of Virbagen Omega, (injections of feline interferon, 1x daily).
Again,
she improved slightly, but not significantly. After the 4th day, I
stopped the VO and put her back on Dox. She's been getting the Dox
again for about a week, she continues to improve, but is still not
herself. I've also been giving her oral interferon (chasing the Dox
pill with it), transfer factor, Lysine, Co-Q10 etc. Her appetite is
off, so I had to stop the supplements to get her to eat. I'm going to
try some transdermal Cyproheptadine to see if it helps her eat more.
You may think I'm crazy, (so what's new?), but I talked to two
different
ACs that told me they did not think there were any tumors
involved, or
problems with any of her internal organs, just a feeling of general
malaise. I had an appointment with our Internist today, but Grace
seems
to have improved more in the last couple of days, so I canceled
it. It
was a difficult decision to make. Grace suffers greatly from the
stress
involved in a visit to the vet and knowing that there would be
several
different tests involved to determine what is going on with her...
Well, I just decided not to put her through it. There's been too many
times that after the trauma and expense, nothing new has been
learned.
I don't feel completely confident in this decision, but if she
doesn't
continue to improve I can still bring her in later. I'm waiting for a
call from the vet to discuss a different antibiotic in case Grace has
finally built a resistance to Doxycycline. For heavens sake, we don't
even know why Dox has worked for her! Anyway, if you could take a
moment to think of my Grace and wish her well, it would be greatly
appreciated.
Nina
