Well, Fluffy's making good progress. He's happy right now (which is VERY VERY good!). We've started seeing him try to place his feet - sometimes he'll tandem if you drag them on the ground (toes taped or in his booties of course).
We're finally back to being able to stand with some balance assist to do things like eat dinner - a HUGE accomplishment!
We took Fluffy to rehab this week ($138, phew!). It didn't seem like he was really ready for the underwater treadmill yet, and I don't need to pay $95/visit right now to have someone stand in water with him when we have a tub at home. That said, they are VERY good with him - it's financial more than anything else.
There's also the incredible bonding experience we get doing rehab with him. All of a sudden that four years of graduate school is turning out to be awfully useful. Who would have ever guessed I'd moonlight as a canine exercise physiologist? :-)
The best part of all, though, it that he's happy - and getting stronger!
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Good News!
Fluffy's turned yet another corner - his spasticity in the right back leg is finally starting to abate. He's still weak, but he's able to bend the knee, and it allows him to sit more naturally.
We're still going VEEERRRRRRYYYY slow with him - who knows how far he will get? But along with the reduced spasticity of the back right leg, he is starting to be able to activate his quadriceps and his adductors on the back left leg. We're doing a lot of standing balance - short periods with lots of rest in between. We're going to have to go slow, but I feel like (dare I say it out loud?) are making progress!
Fluffy is my hero.
We're still going VEEERRRRRRYYYY slow with him - who knows how far he will get? But along with the reduced spasticity of the back right leg, he is starting to be able to activate his quadriceps and his adductors on the back left leg. We're doing a lot of standing balance - short periods with lots of rest in between. We're going to have to go slow, but I feel like (dare I say it out loud?) are making progress!
Fluffy is my hero.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Where is Fluffy's Bailout?
Hi, all,
A lot of stuff has happened. First, the good news - Fluffy is still with us, and recovering.
Sadly, when we unwrapped his back left leg it had gone from being able to bear his full weight to being a limp, wet noodle. I don't know if it was a central injury (repeat cord bleed) or a periphal injury (like a neuropraxia), but I knew it was bad. I haven't known what to write, so I have been watching him day by day. It's only in the past few days that he's begun to have some muscle tone in that leg again. It's the beginning - but we're way behind from where we were before this.
We had brought him back to VSCOT to see the neurologist because we had seen the weakness (accompanied by spasticity in the opposite leg) though at that time there was no sign of bleeding. The criticalist saw him, and called the neurologist as we'd asked, but he insisted it could not be in the cord because it was not bilateral. A few days later he had the god-awful bleed you all read about. His strength hasn't been the same since that saturday we brought him to see the neurologist.
To add insult to injury, we had charged all of Fluffy's care to a mix of three credit cards. We refinanced stuff, and I paid them off almost completely. However, since it looked like I might be carrying a balance, even though I had no late payments, Capital One raised my interest rate from 7.99% to 17.9% (yes, more than double!!). Well, I have till April 17 to decide what to do. However, given that I had paid off almost all of the balance on that card, it was one of my "insurance policies" if Fluffy took ill again. Even if it had a full balance I would be able to cover at least the minimum payments (though I have made far more than that). Well, today I got home and they had lowered my credit limit to $500 above my balance! I've not made a late payment, gone over my limit, or even held a big revolving balance.
I had a very unsatisfying conversation with Amanda - employee KBH246. She insisted it was just routine and they had the right to change the terms at any time, etc., etc., etc. Like so many people she didn't care at all. It was so frustrating. The last thing we need right now is to feel like we're really strapped if anything happens, or god forbid that after $22,000 for this illness alone (not including the $20,000 of blood products donated to Fluffy by Sun States) that we would lose him now over a couple of thousand dollars.
I wasn't planning on running out and buying a big-screen TV or anything. I just wanted to know that in case Fluffy gets sick again or my car breaks down I had a little free credit in case I needed it - a bit of reserve.
Well, I wrote to the president - for his purple file. I don't know if it will do anything, but I had to do something. If you would like to object to Capital One's onerous policies you can write them at webinfo@capitalone.com. You can write to the president at president@whitehouse.gov.
So many times we all feel powerless. You open your cell phone bill or your credit card statement and your terms change and you feel powerless to do anything. You think well maybe you will change vendors but then their terms are just as onerous as the ones you were trying to get away from. Or you move to another bank and then the one you left buys the one you went to.
But perhaps it's time for us to all write our Congresspeople. And to demand better of those companies whose services we purchase. I promised Amanda from Capital One that I would write to my Congresspeople and the president, and I have done so. I also promised her I'd post to my blog and let people know about these things. These are the only recourses we have. If we don't take action and vote with our feet (and our dollars) we won't have anyone to blame but ourselves.
A lot of stuff has happened. First, the good news - Fluffy is still with us, and recovering.
Sadly, when we unwrapped his back left leg it had gone from being able to bear his full weight to being a limp, wet noodle. I don't know if it was a central injury (repeat cord bleed) or a periphal injury (like a neuropraxia), but I knew it was bad. I haven't known what to write, so I have been watching him day by day. It's only in the past few days that he's begun to have some muscle tone in that leg again. It's the beginning - but we're way behind from where we were before this.
We had brought him back to VSCOT to see the neurologist because we had seen the weakness (accompanied by spasticity in the opposite leg) though at that time there was no sign of bleeding. The criticalist saw him, and called the neurologist as we'd asked, but he insisted it could not be in the cord because it was not bilateral. A few days later he had the god-awful bleed you all read about. His strength hasn't been the same since that saturday we brought him to see the neurologist.
To add insult to injury, we had charged all of Fluffy's care to a mix of three credit cards. We refinanced stuff, and I paid them off almost completely. However, since it looked like I might be carrying a balance, even though I had no late payments, Capital One raised my interest rate from 7.99% to 17.9% (yes, more than double!!). Well, I have till April 17 to decide what to do. However, given that I had paid off almost all of the balance on that card, it was one of my "insurance policies" if Fluffy took ill again. Even if it had a full balance I would be able to cover at least the minimum payments (though I have made far more than that). Well, today I got home and they had lowered my credit limit to $500 above my balance! I've not made a late payment, gone over my limit, or even held a big revolving balance.
I had a very unsatisfying conversation with Amanda - employee KBH246. She insisted it was just routine and they had the right to change the terms at any time, etc., etc., etc. Like so many people she didn't care at all. It was so frustrating. The last thing we need right now is to feel like we're really strapped if anything happens, or god forbid that after $22,000 for this illness alone (not including the $20,000 of blood products donated to Fluffy by Sun States) that we would lose him now over a couple of thousand dollars.
I wasn't planning on running out and buying a big-screen TV or anything. I just wanted to know that in case Fluffy gets sick again or my car breaks down I had a little free credit in case I needed it - a bit of reserve.
Well, I wrote to the president - for his purple file. I don't know if it will do anything, but I had to do something. If you would like to object to Capital One's onerous policies you can write them at webinfo@capitalone.com. You can write to the president at president@whitehouse.gov.
So many times we all feel powerless. You open your cell phone bill or your credit card statement and your terms change and you feel powerless to do anything. You think well maybe you will change vendors but then their terms are just as onerous as the ones you were trying to get away from. Or you move to another bank and then the one you left buys the one you went to.
But perhaps it's time for us to all write our Congresspeople. And to demand better of those companies whose services we purchase. I promised Amanda from Capital One that I would write to my Congresspeople and the president, and I have done so. I also promised her I'd post to my blog and let people know about these things. These are the only recourses we have. If we don't take action and vote with our feet (and our dollars) we won't have anyone to blame but ourselves.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Resources ...
One of the things we always think about with Fluffy is resources. Compared to most other dogs, he receives a lot of medical care - and relatively speaking a LOT of blood products. His recent illness sure made that amount go through the roof!
That said, Fluffy does "pay his own way." Because he was the inspiration behind Sun States (see http://www.sunstates.org/ for more info) he may have used up about 100 or 150 units of CRYO and a half-dozen units of red cells, but so far he's been responsible for the generation and dissemination of about 5,000 blood components! Way to go, Fluffy!
Sun States will be firing up our donor program in Tucson in the next few weeks. We do all the stuff the human blood banks do - test for infectious diseases, divide the blood into components, and perform typing. One donation can be divvied up into up to four different components - red blood cells, platelets, and plasma products (cryoprecipitate and cryo-poor plasma). That means one donation helps a lot more dogs than just Fluffy!
Of course, all our dogs are volunteers! Not so with every blood bank - watch out. Some of the larger so-called "animal blood banks" the Humane Societies for dumps and presses animals into service against their will. They live their lives in cages, being blood donors, and don't really get to do anything else. If they don't want to donate it doesn't matter - they are given sedation! Oh, and like all farms they use a vacuum pump to extract the blood faster (90 seconds for 500mL of blood) - Imagine how that would feel if you were the blood donor!
But they have gotten themselves exempted from Freedom of Information Act requests, so no one knows how many animals die from these procedures every year. They boast about "saving animals from euthanasia" but in reality they are running a blood farm with slave donors. Check out
Sun States does it differently (which is why they hate us so much and have worked for so many years to put us out of business). Our donors are volunteers! We form cooperative relationships with rescues sometimes, but we don't take blood from unwilling animals, we don't mandate terms of service (though we like repeat donors!), and we don't use sedation or vacuum pumps with dogs!
Not every dog wants to donate, and that's OK! You have to respect that. It's a gift.
Anyway, if you're in the Tucson area and you want to help a non-profit who wants to save the lives of Fluffy and a whole lot more dogs without exploiting animals be sure to drop us a line! You can contact us at rick@sunstates.org or larry@sunstates.org.
Larry
That said, Fluffy does "pay his own way." Because he was the inspiration behind Sun States (see http://www.sunstates.org/ for more info) he may have used up about 100 or 150 units of CRYO and a half-dozen units of red cells, but so far he's been responsible for the generation and dissemination of about 5,000 blood components! Way to go, Fluffy!
Sun States will be firing up our donor program in Tucson in the next few weeks. We do all the stuff the human blood banks do - test for infectious diseases, divide the blood into components, and perform typing. One donation can be divvied up into up to four different components - red blood cells, platelets, and plasma products (cryoprecipitate and cryo-poor plasma). That means one donation helps a lot more dogs than just Fluffy!
Of course, all our dogs are volunteers! Not so with every blood bank - watch out. Some of the larger so-called "animal blood banks" the Humane Societies for dumps and presses animals into service against their will. They live their lives in cages, being blood donors, and don't really get to do anything else. If they don't want to donate it doesn't matter - they are given sedation! Oh, and like all farms they use a vacuum pump to extract the blood faster (90 seconds for 500mL of blood) - Imagine how that would feel if you were the blood donor!
But they have gotten themselves exempted from Freedom of Information Act requests, so no one knows how many animals die from these procedures every year. They boast about "saving animals from euthanasia" but in reality they are running a blood farm with slave donors. Check out
Sun States does it differently (which is why they hate us so much and have worked for so many years to put us out of business). Our donors are volunteers! We form cooperative relationships with rescues sometimes, but we don't take blood from unwilling animals, we don't mandate terms of service (though we like repeat donors!), and we don't use sedation or vacuum pumps with dogs!
Not every dog wants to donate, and that's OK! You have to respect that. It's a gift.
Anyway, if you're in the Tucson area and you want to help a non-profit who wants to save the lives of Fluffy and a whole lot more dogs without exploiting animals be sure to drop us a line! You can contact us at rick@sunstates.org or larry@sunstates.org.
Larry
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Fluffy goes to rehab!
No, not Compass! Fluffy went to his first physical therapy appointment! He got to practice some new balance ball exercises, got rewarded with chicken, and was evaluated by Dr. Aaronson. When he gets his catheter out we will get him in the underwater treadmill. He had a great time and only barked at two other dogs!
Rick leaves Sunday for Florida. Anyone interested in helping move the blood bank stuff should drop him an e-mail or give him a call. He will need help loading up the truck. His friend Brian is doing the drive back with him. Fluffy and I will stay home with the rest of the gang. Wish us luck!
Rick leaves Sunday for Florida. Anyone interested in helping move the blood bank stuff should drop him an e-mail or give him a call. He will need help loading up the truck. His friend Brian is doing the drive back with him. Fluffy and I will stay home with the rest of the gang. Wish us luck!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Limited Resources and the Big Adventure
Fluffy's doing much better! He's eating well, the swelling in his left leg is slowly going down, and he's wanting to move around more. We're trying to avoid too much of that until he's fully healed, of course.
When the blood bank suspended operations last July (thanks to a bad economy - you can't run a business that lives and dies by delivery when gas is $4.50/gallon) we knew we were on borrowed time. We had spun enough cryoprecipitate to last Fluffy through July, had a bunch of FFP in storage (which is good for up to 1 year at -20 according to US standards), and should have been able to hold out for a good long time if need be. We had half the stuff in Florida, and half was shipped to Arizona. We bought an extra freezer and it was FULL!
Well, since Fluffy's injury I am now looking at the bottom of that freezer. Getting a severe hemophiliac through neurosurgery requires a lot of cryo! Add to that he is now a wobbly 50-lb. toddler learning to walk again who bruises when he bumps into things and ... well, you get the idea.
Of course, in the last few months much of our cryo has 'expired' as well. I put that in quotes for a couple of reasons. The expiration dates for cryo and FFP are based upon human data for blood stored at -20. There's some evidence from Europe that blood stored at -30 (we store at -30) will be good for up to three years. The problem is, of course, that the factor that Fluffy needs - Factor VIII - is one of the most fragile of the factors.
As it stands, we have about 40 more unexpired units left, plus 30 or so more 'expired' units (stored at -30). Normally, Fluffy goes through 2 units/month - doesn't sound so bad, right? Well, the problem is is that we're going through it a lot faster right now. Hopefully that's temporary - a lot hinges on his continued progress and learning to walk again.
So we're somewhere between a few weeks (worst case given the plasma we have) and a few months (given the time we have left on the cartons till expiration).
Rick is going to head out to Florida this week and get our centrifuge, and get it out west. Then we're going to scramble to find some donors here - we have about 10 potential donors to start, but we don't know how many will be good donors, how many will pass infectious disease testing, etc. We *DO* know this is pretty much Fluffy's only option at this point.
Of course, we'd been scheduled to do this for months. We had booked time in January to move the blood bank stuff here, but Fluffy's illness sort of messed everything up. His sharp increase in plasma consumption has made things dicey, too - now we're suddenly on a much stricter timetable.
Rick probably leaves sometime tomorrow, after our plasma shipment arrives from Fort Lauderdale. I'm having it shipped in two parts in case something bad happens to part of it. Rick will fly out, try to find someone to help him move the centrifuge (it's heavy, yikes!), and get it to the person we bought it from, who will service it and get it ready for the journey westward. Then Rick is throwing everything on a truck and driving it out here. My job during that time is to keep an eye on Fluffy, not get fired from MY job, and get enough of the garage cleared out we've got room for everything.
If anyone on either end wants to volunteer some help that would be great. We need mover types in Florida, box-juggler or dog-watcher types in Arizona, and enough luck that we can pull this off.
When the blood bank suspended operations last July (thanks to a bad economy - you can't run a business that lives and dies by delivery when gas is $4.50/gallon) we knew we were on borrowed time. We had spun enough cryoprecipitate to last Fluffy through July, had a bunch of FFP in storage (which is good for up to 1 year at -20 according to US standards), and should have been able to hold out for a good long time if need be. We had half the stuff in Florida, and half was shipped to Arizona. We bought an extra freezer and it was FULL!
Well, since Fluffy's injury I am now looking at the bottom of that freezer. Getting a severe hemophiliac through neurosurgery requires a lot of cryo! Add to that he is now a wobbly 50-lb. toddler learning to walk again who bruises when he bumps into things and ... well, you get the idea.
Of course, in the last few months much of our cryo has 'expired' as well. I put that in quotes for a couple of reasons. The expiration dates for cryo and FFP are based upon human data for blood stored at -20. There's some evidence from Europe that blood stored at -30 (we store at -30) will be good for up to three years. The problem is, of course, that the factor that Fluffy needs - Factor VIII - is one of the most fragile of the factors.
As it stands, we have about 40 more unexpired units left, plus 30 or so more 'expired' units (stored at -30). Normally, Fluffy goes through 2 units/month - doesn't sound so bad, right? Well, the problem is is that we're going through it a lot faster right now. Hopefully that's temporary - a lot hinges on his continued progress and learning to walk again.
So we're somewhere between a few weeks (worst case given the plasma we have) and a few months (given the time we have left on the cartons till expiration).
Rick is going to head out to Florida this week and get our centrifuge, and get it out west. Then we're going to scramble to find some donors here - we have about 10 potential donors to start, but we don't know how many will be good donors, how many will pass infectious disease testing, etc. We *DO* know this is pretty much Fluffy's only option at this point.
Of course, we'd been scheduled to do this for months. We had booked time in January to move the blood bank stuff here, but Fluffy's illness sort of messed everything up. His sharp increase in plasma consumption has made things dicey, too - now we're suddenly on a much stricter timetable.
Rick probably leaves sometime tomorrow, after our plasma shipment arrives from Fort Lauderdale. I'm having it shipped in two parts in case something bad happens to part of it. Rick will fly out, try to find someone to help him move the centrifuge (it's heavy, yikes!), and get it to the person we bought it from, who will service it and get it ready for the journey westward. Then Rick is throwing everything on a truck and driving it out here. My job during that time is to keep an eye on Fluffy, not get fired from MY job, and get enough of the garage cleared out we've got room for everything.
If anyone on either end wants to volunteer some help that would be great. We need mover types in Florida, box-juggler or dog-watcher types in Arizona, and enough luck that we can pull this off.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Fluffy's 7th Birthday!
Let's not let Fluffy's most recent hiccups eclipse the fact that today Fluffy is 7 years old! We're so excited for him!
Look at that smile! This was taken a little earlier this morning, when we visited him in the hospital, shortly before he was discharged.
He's very happy to be home. He's snoozing in his cage.
We're ordering bubble wrap in bulk.
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