Well, my day has continued to go downhill..... now it's the dog.
We've been keeping an eye on our dog's liver enzyme levels for the past 6-8 months. They've been very high and that basically means that there is inflammation in his liver. We started a supplement a few months ago to see if it would help bring these levels down and I took the dog in for bloodwork yesterday to recheck things.
Well the vet called this afternoon to tell me that Max's levels have continued to go up. So, the new supplement isn't working at all. Plus, this time they did another test to check for liver function and it wasn't good either. Basically my dog is slowly going into liver failure. The next step is to do an ultrasound to see if there is a mass or tumor that can be seen. THe other option is a biopsy, but that would necessitate opening up his abdomen to see his liver. She also mentioned that even if they did find a mass, liver cancer in dogs is inoperable, so it's not like they could do anything about it. But she did mention some treatment options that might be able to help.
I basically told her that we were dealing with some other issues right now and couldn't even spare brain cells to think about this right now. She said it wasn't urgent and can wait until after the New Year. So, she's going to check in with us then. At this point, I can't even think about losing my dog.
On a somewhat better note, my MIL seems to be doing better. The doctors still can't rule out a fracture in her vertabrae though. They've done a CT scan, but it's been inconclusive. They wanted to do an MRI, but there's a problem. My MIL has three metal clips in her head. An MRI could basically cause the clips to come flying out of her head (through her skull) and kill her. So, until they can figure out what kind of metal the clips are made of, they can't do anything. Considering the clips are from 1958 when she had a sinus infection that spread to her brain, requiring an experimental brain surgery, it's pretty hard to determine what they're made of. The really interesting thing is that the brain surgery was actually done at the same hospital she's at right now! So, hopefully they can find some record of it. Plus, she was written about in a medical journal back in 1958 as well. Hopefully they can find it after a lot of searching!
So, for now, she's lying on her back with a collar on staring at the ceiling. She can't have anything but clear liquids because they aren't sure she won't need surgery. I'm just really hoping that they figure it out soon. I can only imagine what kind of boredom she's facing. If DD4 wasn't still sick, I would go visit her tomorrow.
Speaking of DD4, she ate a few crackers for dinner and promptly threw them up. So, any chance of her going to the sitters tomorrow is pretty much out the window. I did, however, get Eric to agree to work from home in the morning so that I could go to DD7's school program and Gingerbread house building thing. I just hope that DD4 is better so that she can go to her school program on Friday. And that DD7 doesn't catch it from her!
After reading all of that, you guys deserve a medal. Thanks for letting me vent! I'm headed to bed now as I've been up since DD4 started getting sick at 3am this morning. I sincerely hope that everyone is having a better night than me! I love you all!
(never thought I'd be so happy about that) I need to head off to bed. D is on the phone right now, sounding a little happy. 
