All grown up, and limping along

Well, it wouldn't be life on the Unfarm without at least one thing going wrong with our new ducklings. I think we must attract special needs animals. In this case, Gracie started limping not long after she hatched. Taking her to the vet - multiple times - finally led to a diagnosis: the tendon in her knee had slipped out of the groove it is supposed to stay in, leading her to start limping as the muscle pulled the leg into an awkward angle. 

We did everything we could for her: we tried physical therapy but she decided that she was going to be the first duck in the history of ducks who does not like swimming, which was what she needed to do for her PT. I tried anyway, and I gave her all the recommended medications and kept her from running around on the leg too much and separated her from the boys so no one would try mating with her, putting too much pressure on her body. At one point, she was even wearing a little boot the vet made for her. We even sprung for an experimental knee surgery with our veterinarian: they put pins in her knee to hold the tendon in place with the hope that should would make scar tissue that would hold the tendon in place when the pins eventually had to be pulled out. Spoiler alert: she did not. 

Gracie in her boot, out for a stroll

So where are we now? Well, Gracie is all grown up and still limping, and her leg is bent at an angle so she can't put all her weight on it, and she spends her nights in the house with Minna, our house duck, (a story for another time) but goes outside in a separated run during the day in nice weather. For now she doesn't appear to be getting any better - and I don't expect her to - but neither does she appear to be getting worse. So I make her life as easy and comfortable as possible and hope that she can continue on much as she has been - limping but not uncomfortable - and enjoying the best of both worlds, indoor and out. Fingers crossed she holds steady, as we are, after all, experienced with special needs pets, and I would rather deal with a limping duck than the alternative which would be to have her put to sleep.

The mice of the Unfarm: a recap, and whether or not decorating is my calling

We have had several mice here on the Unfarm going, in chronological order, from Bernadette to Caroline, then Daphne, and then Evangeline, Francine, Gemima, and (since it was bugging me that I had missed the "a") Angela. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that Gemima appeared to be losing weight so I made an appointment with the vet for her. It was quite timely because the morning of the vet appointment Gemima was sitting in her cage, hunched and moving very little with a discharge coming from her nose. I had her in the backseat of the car and was ready to leave for the vet's office when I got a phone call from them. An emergency case had just come in and the vet had rushed into emergency surgery with a ferret with a life threatening condition and as a result Gemima's appointment got bumped. Now I faced a dilemma: wait it out with Gemima at home and hope she pulled through until the vet could see her or take her in to the vet's office anyway and leave her there for the vet to check once he got out of surgery. I chose the latter. The next morning I got the call that she had unfortunately passed away sometime during the night, probably due to a failure of some sort in some internal organ. So my little quartet became a trio: Angela, Evangeline, and Francine are left still and are, for the most part, doing well. (Evangeline has a bit of a respiratory illness that she is not quite suppressing as well as she should but it is nothing that requires medication as of yet. Fingers crossed that she beats it on her own.)

Switching gears: apparently I am a horrible decorator. As soon as I set a litter box down in the rabbit cages the rabbits start tossing them about, moving them from one side of the cage to the other. Ginger was quite fond of tossing her litter box off the second floor of her cage and scattering her litter, box, and bunny berries all over the floor until I thwarted her by keeping her box on the first floor of her cage. Dog beds and blankets neatly laid out get scrunched and rearranged and dragged down the hallway until the dogs are satisfied with the new arrangement. The chickens and ducks are not much better - the chickens scratch about in their straw convinced that there is invisible food buried somewhere in the coop until they have made a proper mess and Minna is fond of pulling up any loose material around her to create little nests. I am no more successful with the mice. I cleaned their cage the other day and put in more bedding than I usually do - too much, as it turns out. I saw Francine at the cage bars yesterday, busily pushing bedding out of the cage between the bars and onto the table below. Maybe the feng shui was off somehow. Or maybe the cage wasn't "open concept" enough anymore. Or maybe I simply am a horrible decorator.

Limping back to the vet

As always tends to happen here on the Unfarm, no sooner has one pet gotten back from the vet than another one heads in. This time it is Scout, who is limping. Again. Last time it was his right leg and this time it is his left and in both cases the blood work came back with a high eosinophil level while the x-rays came back clean and the anti-inflammatory medication has no effect which means we need to see a specialist. Which means more money. Our vet's office recently remodeled and added another exam room, a project I am sure was funded mostly by the Unfarm; they really should have just named the new wing after us.

In this case there is no end in sight yet to the vet visits for Scout. First up is an expensive test (surprise, surprise) to rule out Addison's disease. Should that come back negative we have to schedule a visit with an orthopedic specialist who may recommend injections for a month that we would have to learn how to give. So in addition to being able to pill a duck and collar a chicken I would be able to add "inject a dog" to my list of accomplishments. The fun never stops around here. I'll keep you posted.

Love is in the air...unfortunately

It's springtime. The birds are singing, the bees are buzzing, and the ducks are... mating. Yes, it's true, while rabbits are widely considered to be the great multipliers, from what I have seen it's the ducks that actually try the hardest. Under normal circumstances this would not be a problem but Minna and Maggie are two different breeds of duck: Minna is a mallard mix and Maggie (despite the name, Maggie is actually a boy) is a pekin, and is at least twice as large as Minna. In addition to putting in lots of practice, Maggie also never seemed to learn that no means no, which means that Minna is frequently not in the mood when Maggie comes calling, and tries to wiggle away.

A couple of weeks ago Minna caused some alarm when she seemed to be under the weather. She wasn't eating much and she seemed to be unable to move very far without resting. I rushed her off to the vet and waited to hear the results. Is it a gut upset? Is she egg bound? Is she sick? Is it curable?? Often the news from the vet is worse than we had expected so I am rarely surprised now when the bill comes out in the hundreds of dollars. I am sure we have single handedly paid for the new wing at the vet hospital. One of these days I fear I will find myself on the street corner holding a sign that says, "Have 14 pets. Sold the house to pay for vet bills. Anything helps." 

When the vet came back with the verdict I held my breath and braced for the impact. "She sprained her leg. A week of Rimadyl and she'll be fine." What? Could it possibly be true? A vet bill under $100 and a problem so easily fixed? My luck must be changing. The vet went on to explain that it was most likely caused by her trying to stand up and get away while a giant pekin stood on her back. I was told to give her the medicine and keep her separated from Maggie at least until her leg healed. Minna was thrilled. Maggie was not. 

Minna got to spend the week lounging in the bunny room, getting private meal times and sleeping on a soft bed. Maggie spent the week standing outside my window quacking at me to let me know what he thought of this new arrangement. Aside from mating related injuries, Maggie is actually very protective of Minna and likes to stay where he can keep an eye on her and know that she is safe; that he couldn't even see her did not make him happy. Maggie is also very good at figuring out where in the house I am, and going to whichever window or door is closest to make his presence known. 

Below the second floor bunny room is a patio, and the yard slopes upward and away from the house beyond that. So while the patio is closest to the window, it is also farther down than the back section of the yard. Maggie decided he needed to be on the patio, but higher up somehow. His solution to this dilemma was simple: he got into the livestock tank that serves as their pool, and stood on the four bricks that are stacked in the pool to facilitate easier exiting from the pool, then stretched his neck all the way up and quacked under my window. He seemed quite proud of himself for discovering this solution - despite what you may think, ducks are very smart animals.

I am surprised that Maggie didn't lose his voice with all the complaining he did that week, but despite being out of sorts he managed to survive. Minna healed up quite well and has rejoined Maggie in the yard. Life on the Unfarm returns to normal - which is to say that it is in a constant state of chaos.

Long overdue updates from the Unfarm

I made a resolution at the beginning of this year that I would make posts more often. And I know that most resolutions get thrown by the wayside by mid January, or early February if we are very good. But despite that history, I really did have every intention of keeping this resolution. Things got a little bumpy at the beginning of the year, as you may remember, when Maia had a health scare, but after recovering from her surgery she had more energy than she's had in a long time and it looked like it would be smooth sailing from there on out. And it was. For her. 

But as I drove home from work on the evening of January 29th, I got a call from my parents that Kita was acting strangely. I rushed home long enough to call the emergency vet to give them a heads up and run out to the car with drooling, panting, unresponsive Kita. There was nothing the vet could do. He was ready to go (which was confirmed by our AMAZING animal communicator, Karen Anderson, who we LOVE) and we couldn't hold him here no matter how much I may have wanted to. The hardest part of living with animals is knowing that you will, in all likelihood, outlive them and you will have to watch them as they slip. I lay on the floor at the vet's office, with my nose resting against Kita's, trying to let him know I was there for him and would not leave his side. And then the vet gave him the injection, and he left. It was hard - incredibly hard - to lose this dog who had been part of our family for roughly 16 years. I kept expecting to see him come around the corner, or be sleeping on his dog bed on my bedroom floor, or pass his leash hanging on my wall. 

But one of the advantages of having multiple pets, for me at least, is knowing that all the other animals still need me and I can forget my loss, to some degree, by taking care of the rest of the animals. And we weren't without dogs - Maia and Buddy were still with us, although Buddy seemed to feel Kita's absence and spent the time after the loss moping around the house and showing little interest in his regular activities. About a week after Kita died I decided that Buddy needed to get out of the house and go for a walk with me and Maia, even though he didn't show his usual exuberant whippet energy. We got part of the way down the street when he stopped walking. He simply refused to go any further, despite several attempts to get him to change his mind. I finally gave in and took him back home and he went right back to bed. At about 6:50 that evening Mom noticed that his gums were pale and suggested we call the vet. They told us to bring him in right then, even though they were closing in 10 minutes. At the vet it was discovered that his red blood cell count, which should have been in the 50-60 range was down to 8, a number the vet described as "barely compatible with life." From there I rushed him to the specialist vet 40 minutes away and he was submitted and getting a blood transfusion within the hour. We were told by Buddy's internist (yes, he had his own internal medicine specialist) within the next couple of days that Buddy had IMHA. Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia. Basically, his body was destroying his own red blood cells, for reasons unknown. And more good news: it was a non responsive type, which is harder to treat. But we went all out - transfusions, regular blood counts, multiple night stays in the vet ER, special diets, and enough medications that we had to create an elaborate chart to keep track of when he needed his 13+ medications each day. I even tried alternative treatments. He went to a holistic vet, he got acupuncture, and he received reiki and shamanic healing from an amazing friend of Karen's. We spent one month fighting for Buddy, and over $10,000 to give our six year old dog every shot possible. I wish I could say that it worked, that Buddy finally began to make a turn around, that he is sleeping on the floor behind me as I write this. But I can't. In the end, Buddy became unresponsive and began panting hard one night. I rushed him to the specialist with my brother where they said he may have thrown a clot and they might be able to get him through to the morning if they intubated him, sticking a breathing tube down his throat. I decided that we had to let him go. He had told Karen a couple of weeks earlier that he was tired and ready to go but we hadn't been ready to let him go yet, and he seemed to be showing some improvement. I couldn't stand the thought of him dying there, in the hospital, with tubes down his throat and all alone. So I kissed him and hugged him and stroked his face as they gave him the injection, and then he left. Just like Kita, and only two months and two days afterward. And five short days before his seventh birthday. Driving home at 3:30 in the morning, it struck me as appropriate in some way that I had been the one to bring him into our lives, with a car ride together after picking him up at four months old from the breeder's house several hours away in Kennewick, Washington, and I was with him on his last car ride, as he left our lives that night.

Kita we had expected. We didn't like it, but we saw it coming - he had lived a long, full life with us. But Buddy. Buddy was so young, and so full of life such a short time ago. And now the house felt like a canyon - like you could scream and you would hear an echo with the emptiness of this place.

Two days after Buddy died, I checked in with him and Kita, via Karen. They were both feeling great and Buddy was raring to come back soon. He said he felt like he hadn't gotten to finish his time with us. But in the meantime, he said, he had sent us a gift. A dog at the local shelter was meant for us. So I went that very evening to get Axel, our newest addition to the Unfarm. He is a large dog - about 95 pounds, and black with brown markings, a Husky-Shepherd mix (so like Kita it's almost uncanny!) and ten years old. He probably didn't have much chance of being adopted with that triple threat: big, black, and elderly. He had, in fact, already been adopted and returned to the shelter once before. As I was filling out the paperwork for adoption I was given the highly encouraging news that Axel also had separation anxiety and should he ever be left alone he would proceed to destroy the doors, windows, couches, gates and any crate we might put him in. This gave me a great deal of trepidation, but not nearly enough to doubt Buddy's wisdom. 

We have had Axel for over a month now, and he has turned out to be THE perfect dog for us. He is gentle, calm, friendly, quiet, and he LOVES going on walks and for rides in the car. We have also discovered that he has little to no separation anxiety with us and my fears (and the ominous predictions of the adoption counselor) were largely unfounded. He certainly does not enjoy being left alone, but he tolerates it just fine. He also has loads of energy and doesn't show his age at all. And the cherry on top? He grew up around chickens and cows so he behaves perfectly around all of our various "snack sized" pets. We could not have created a better situation if we tried. Thanks, Buddy.

So the drama was over, and life on the Unfarm settled back into a comfortable, if slightly lonely, routine. Until exactly two weeks after Buddy died, when Aspen went to the vet to address his bladder leakage. I had to leave him there for the afternoon for x-rays but went back in the evening to pick him up and hear the damage (Aspen has had several bladder problems in the past and they tend to run at least $1000 each and involve at least one overnight stay at the emergency vet per occurrence.) When I got to the vet they told me to head back to the visitor's lounge. This was unusual - definitely more kidney stones. Sigh. It was not kidney stones. It was worse. He had a heart murmur. And was in kidney failure. And the cancer we suspected he had, had now spread and was filling his abdomen. He was uncomfortable and at 17 years old, even if we decided to be aggressive in our treatment, it would not buy him a lot of time. I held him, bundled up in a blanket, and kissed his little gray nose (enough times to annoy him, most likely) and whispered in his ear as the vet gave him the injection to send him sailing away from me. 

Three losses of my little ones in as many months. Can you see now why I avoided this entry? I did not want to admit that we had lost so much, so many animals that spent their days and nights with us, who kept us company and made us laugh and comforted us when we needed it. So many days I won't get back and so many experiences that were yet to come. But here it is. Written down for everyone to see. And in reading this, I hope that they might live on again, even for a short while, in you.

A scare on the Unfarm

Last Friday morning I noticed Maia was a little wobbly. Because she had suffered a bout of Old Dog Vestibular Syndrome six months or so ago, I was worried this was a recurrence. I called our vet (who is, of course, on a first name basis with us as we have spent enough money there to put EVERYONE'S kids through college - vets, techs, receptionists, the whole shebang) and got an appointment for that afternoon. 

When I took her in I wasn't overly concerned, as she had come through the previous bout quite well and this one didn't seem nearly as bad. The vet found that she had slow reactions on her left legs and in her right eye, leading them to suggest that it might be a neurological problem. Concern started to wiggle in the back of my mind. The vet ordered blood tests, thyroid tests, a urinalysis, and suggested we take x-rays. Hmm, someone else must be approaching college age. I was able to authorize the blood work but the powers that be (my parents) decided to wait on the x-rays. 

By the time my mom arrived home from work the blood test results were back and the vet managed to convince my mom to approve the x-rays for the next day on the basis of the neurological symptoms and the fact that she was anemic, which might be caused by internal bleeding.

Saturday morning I managed to get Maia to the vet by 9 am so they could work her in during the day. She seemed much better so I was optimistic. The concern had made a quiet exit. By the early afternoon I got a call informing me that the x-rays had shown a mass in Maia's spleen and the vet recommended an ultrasound to get a better picture. The door slammed open and worry barged in. While on the phone, the vet told me that the ultrasound techs were at the local ER vet and they were holding the last available appointment for me at 4pm if I wanted to take it. Schedule it. I'll pick her up in 20 minutes.

Down to the ER vet. Yet another place I am all too familiar with, having visited it before with at least one cat, one duck and two rabbits. The ultrasound showed that there was indeed a mass in her spleen, which may have been causing the neurological symptoms, along with fluid in her belly that had leaked out of the mass yesterday. I think they used the term "ticking time bomb" when they told me that the mass could burst at any time; they recommended surgery. Then. Saturday night, not even 48 hours from the first sign of any trouble. I could not bear the thought that the mass might burst, causing Maia pain and forcing her to go into surgery in a state of shock. 

There was good news and bad to consider. On the positive side, we had caught this problem early, before it burst. Many of the patients the ER vets see come in after the mass bursts, and Maia was in the condition that the vets want to see a patient go into surgery in: stable and relatively healthy - she is in remarkable shape and most people do a double take when we tell them she is, in fact, 16 years old. The bad news was that the vet was less than optimistic about the outcome. He informed me that the ultrasound can't see everything and that many times, when they open the abdomen they find that the tumor has spread. To the liver, the kidneys, the abdominal wall. Needless to say, this was NOT what I wanted to hear. 

I authorized the surgery. I did not check with my parents, on the grounds that I was afraid they would say no and I was not at all ready to lose Maia, or risk a possibly painful death at some point in the future. I left her there, and drove home, still in something of a tailspin. To their great credit, my parents were not mad but were, in fact, supportive of the decision to go ahead with the surgery. Maia has always been a good little girl, and is very fond of sleeping all night in my room, and then all day with Dad when he is on his week to work nights. She is, as he often reminds us, "a good little sleeper."

The vet had informed me that they would call when they started the surgery. I checked my phone to ensure it was on the loudest possible setting. I then checked my phone at 9:30 to be sure I hadn't missed the call somehow. 9:37. 9:46. 9:50. 10:13. 10:25. 10:39. 11:01. 11:16. Sometime between then and midnight they called to say they were beginning the surgery. If they encountered anything unexpected (read: bad) when they opened her up they would call. I spent the next half hour laying on the couch in the dark, visualizing with everything I had that the vet opens her up, inspects her abdomen and says, with amazement, "it's clean - no signs of spreading! Wow!" I also pictured the happy dance I would do when I got the good news. (The visualization has more power when you imagine how you will feel when whatever you hope for happens.)

A little before 1:30 in the morning, my phone rang again. 
"Hello?" 
"We're all finished with the surgery. The spleen came out in one piece without any trouble." 
"And the spreading? How did it look?"
"Oh yes, we checked the liver, kidneys and abdomen and everything was clean. No signs of spreading."

I thanked the vet and hung up, then bounced down the hallway, burst into the master bedroom and told a somewhat confused, bleary eyed Mom the news while doing my happy dance. (And yes, it did look ridiculous.) I then called my brother, my dad at work, and my sister - even though it was 3am in Minnesota.

Maia got the OK to come home Sunday night. Before picking her up I stopped by the store, got three different kinds of treats and a very fancy $70 metal frame "princess bed." Now, a week out from the surgery, Maia is doing very well. She has a cute red hoodie vest on to keep her from licking at her staples and she is back to her old self, with some improvements: her appetite has greatly improved and she is much perkier than she's been in a while, which has me wondering if this mass had her slightly under the weather for longer than we realized. 

All in all, I am quite pleased with the condition of all the Unfarmians. Kita continues to trek along, Ginger continues to insist that her litter box will work better if she dumps all the hay out onto the floor and then turns the box upside down like some post-modern sculpture in the middle of her cage, and the ducks are both molting, blanketing everything in a layer of down and feathers.