Socks

Today has definitely been better for Holly. She slept all day long yesterday. We're struggling to get her to eat something. She hasn't had a real meal since Friday. When we weighed her at the vet yesterday she was 6 pounds even. She's supposed to be 7.5 pounds so seeing that number made Mom and I gasp. We've gotta get some food in that baby's belly.

Another issue we're dealing with right now is Holly's kidneys. When Dr. Bob called with the great news that Holly made it through the anesthesia yesterday he also informed us that her kidneys were extremely bad. He said "I'm going to give you a number we use to test kidneys. A 2 is considered really bad. Holly is at 11.6." He said he wants to flush her kidneys every day for 7 days to try to get that number to come down. It's basically like dialysis for dogs. He said he's not saying it will work but he thinks if it does work we can get that number down to like a 3/4. So I'm staying in Little Rock all week until we finish flushing her kidneys. I hope so bad it works. We think it already is since Holly seems to be feeling a tiny bit better every hour. Dr. Bob also commented that he thought her eyes looked more lively than they did yesterday. If her kidneys improve then I think we can get our little Holly back to being "Holly" again.

It's just kind of irritating to me that her NWA doctor didn't suggest this a long time ago. I've known that she's had bad kidneys for over a year but I was never informed that there was a way to try and treat them. Why didn't she suggest we do this? Maybe they don't know how to do it there--I don't know--but we never would have gotten to this point had we treated it a long time ago. All morning and afternoon long I was angry. I went to the mall to buy some new clothes because I didn't bring very many with me since I thought I would just be here 2 days. I felt like one of those people that if someone accidentally bumped into me I would have erupted into a rage and freaked out on them. Everyone was taking too long to check me out, everyone was annoying me, even I was annoying me. I'm feeling a little more pleasant now but going through this is just sickening, depressing, irritating, and sad to me. Holly has never been so pitiful and it breaks my heart. I'm mad at myself too. I should have brought her to Dr. Bob and had him do a little check up of her every once and a while. I just always thought to myself 'well, she's getting older, that's why this is happening.' I shouldn't have thought like that. I should have known better.

The big thing challenging Holly right now is food. No food = weakness. Holly is really weak right now. She did eat today but not much. I think what little she did have today will give her some energy for tomorrow. She's having a hard time walking right now and is slipping so bad on Mom's hardwood floors and bless her heart she's too weak to pick herself back up. For some crazy reason I bought Holly some socks years and years ago. I got them because I thought it would be funny and I knew Holly would not appreciate them. I have a little bag for her with all of her stuff and I always bring it with me when I travel with her. I remembered the socks today and stuck them on her feet to see what would happen. Sure enough, I've solved the slipping on the floors problem! They have rubber on the bottom just like baby socks so it helps her to not slip. Normally Holly would not appreciate the socks but I think she knows they're helping her right now. I think that'll improve her emotions too. She's upset with herself that she's not normal and I can tell it's bothering her. Hopefully she'll be feeling great and her health will be so much greater by the end of the week. That's my prayer.

Holly's a fighter and so is her Momma and Kara. We manage to be extremely creative during these times and come up with all sorts of ways to fix a problem. We love our girl. We want her to be healthy, happy and comfortable. Whatever it takes we'll do it. We'll do anything for our Holly.