At the vet waitin on the doc

Skelly is very excited to be here! He crammed his head out the window when I pulled into the parking lot. In the waiting room he was yelling hi at every person and dog in sight. He was so excited, he made himself throw up a little.

His favorite vet tech took him for a walk around the building so he could see his pals. I was talking with her and she told me about Emma. Emma is a female pit bull that was dumped on the doorstep a month ago here at San Juan Animal Hospital. She and her litter of 7 male pups have been given vaccinations and have been well taken care of by the staff. 

She is roughly 2 years old. She is heartworm positive, and is doing very well. She is on the heartworm preventative, and has put on about 20 lbs since her arrival here at San Juan.

Emma needs a foster or forever home! Please spread the word and let's see if we can help this charming young lady.

Emma is a very sweet dog.

Emma and her 7 male puppies were abandoned at San Juan Animal Hospital. The staff have been working hard to find homes for the pups. They have 3 of the 7 puppies remaining. They all need homes, but Emma will be the hardest to find a home for. She still needs to be spayed and suffers from heartworms. I hope we can find somebody to take her in. Please contact me if you are interested in adopting Emma or her pups: skeletor (at) fuelmultimedia.com

I'm going to try and get some better pics of her. I will update when skelly sees dr fish.

Back to Skeletor...

His red cell count is up to 37%. The normal levels range from 37-55% placing him right on the threshold. This is good news, especially since 22 days ago he was down to an alarming 21%!

Dr. Fish says that his heart sounds better. An x-ray revealed that there are still blockages in his lungs. Dr. Fish said that if we can get the Viagra to help with the pulmonary hypertension, it's possible that his lungs may clear up. He also mentioned that he heard recently that Pfizer offers discounts on the drug in special cases. He is going to call them on Skelly's behalf. Thanks Doc! Let's hope they are feeling generous!

Skeletor weighed in at 56lbs. This is about 4 lbs heavier. I found this surprising, since he seems to have put on so much weight. Perhaps we got a bad reading last time, or maybe since he's barred from exercise, his muscles are turning to fat.

At any rate, he is certainly responding well to the medications! I picked up some more prednisone and vetmedin. We're cutting his prednisone dose in half, and later this week I'll raise his dose of vetmedin from 5 to 7.5mg twice a day.

Our goal is still the same... we want to ween him off the predisone (which is hard on the liver and kidneys) and get his red cell count to stabilize (that means 4 consecutive bi-monthly visits showing normal levels).

When we reach that stage, we should have a tough, healthy, happy pup that is ready to finally triumph over those lousy heartworms!