Culture Update and Vitamins

Normally if we don't receive a phone call, everything is normal with her cultures (and often her lab work).  I didn't receive a call, and honestly I didn't even think twice about it until this weekend!  So I called this morning, and her cultures were normal save for the same strain of MRSA that she's been culturing for a while now.  Normal cultures are always a good thing!

I'm hoping we won't have too many issues with her vitamins once I get her new prescription.  About a month ago, I called to get a new prescription because we were running low.  Previously I was getting bottles from the clinic, but because there was a slight shortage when we needed the new prescription, I couldn't get a bottle from them and we had to order them from the pharmacy.  When they arrived, they smelled HORRIBLE.  Like stale dog food mixed with stinky feet horrible.  Judith wisely did not take them, and I assumed they were bad.  I called the pharmacy after talking with our CF nurse, and we got a second bottle sent.  We had the same problem, and I decided to take them with us to our appointment.  As soon as the team walked in, they could smell the nasty odor coming from the prescription bottle, and said they would investigate what was causing it.

It turns out that the Aquadeks chewables underwent a formulation change, and they added more Vitamin B to them which was causing some of the odor.  Putting them in the orange colored bottle only made the smell worse.  So they were indeed safe to take, but the heinous stench was extremely off-putting to my toddler (and let's be honest, I don't blame her, nor would I want to take something that smelled that disgusting!).  We're going to try to get approval for more than a month's worth of vitamins so we can get them in the original bottle and hopefully avoid this stinky issue.  Keep your fingers crossed that it works!

Happy 4th Gotcha Day!

Another year has passed, and we're celebrating the 4th anniversary of adopting Buster and Lady!  They really are a great and fun addition to our family, even though they drive me nuts sometimes.

Overall, they're doing well, but I can tell that they're senior dogs and are starting to show some age-related problems.  In the last year, Lady has injured her shoulder a few times after playing too hard, and the recurring soft tissue injury requires her to be on confinement for a certain amount of time.  Naturally she can't stand that, and gets upset with me because she's not allowed to play and has to rest.  She still has an insane passion for balls, sticks, frisbees, and anything else that can be chased, but she does tire out a little faster sometimes, and I think she might be developing some minor arthritis in her joints.  Buster's been suffering from periodic flare ups of a pinched nerve in his neck, and when he has problems we have to put his doggy neck brace (that our vet showed us how to make using a towel - it's pretty neat!) to help stabilize things so he can get some relief.

Buster's still as snuggly as ever, and like I said earlier Lady still enjoys playing!  They love to go for car rides, sleep, bark at the neighborhood dogs and assorted wildlife, eat, and come to us for a good scratch behind the ears.  They're much better about leaving Judith's toys alone, but they're not as good about leaving her food alone.  Buster in particular will follow Judith around anywhere if she has food in her hands, and she's also prone to toss him things because she thinks it's funny (we're working on that with both of them, and this is the major reason why she doesn't get anything that could be toxic to them unless they're in a separate room).  I am very pleased that they are tolerant with her, and patient with me as I work with Judith to treat them with respect.

We truly enjoy having them as a part of our family, and are blessed to have 2 great dogs!

Happy Gotcha Day, Buster and Lady!

CF Clinic

Today was Judith's quarterly CF clinic visit, and I'm pleased to say that I don't have a lot to report!  Things are still looking and sounding pretty good, and we're fortunate that she is remaining healthy.  She was her typical 2 year old self, loudly declaring "No!  I don't like that!" whenever she could, but once Dr. G. started examining her, she was fine and very cooperative.  Of course we have to wait a week for her throat culture results, but based off how she's doing I'll be surprised if anything has significantly changed since her last visit.

There was 1 thing that we have to really work on, and that her team is a bit concerned about: she actually lost weight since her last appointment 3 months ago.  Today she weighed in at 23 1/2 lbs, which means she's also down 2 lbs from her last appointment with her primary pediatrician.  We definitely have some work to do to try to fatten her up and to keep her from losing even more weight.  On a positive note, she is 34 1/2", so she's still doing well in the height department!