We had another "health" issue too - although it obviously isn't on the same par as my sister's situation. Nevertheless, it has been difficult for Dave and me. Foster (our American Eskimo, for any of you who don't know him!) has been acting really weird for the last 2-3 weeks. We've become increasingly worried about him - he has virtually stopped eating and has last 5 pounds (from 40 pounds down to 35, so a significant portion of his total body weight). He also seems to be having a lot of trouble with his hindquarters - not able to jump into the car or climb the steps of the RV without difficulty. Yesterday I called my daughter-in-law Joyce (who has been a vet tech for years) and she convinced us that we needed to get him to a vet right away - like NOW! We asked the host here at the campground for a recommendation of a local vet and we took him in yesterday. The vet was GREAT - a warm, caring middle-aged woman who came in and immediately got right down on the floor next to Foster. They took 3 X-rays and did a blood and uring test. The good news is that Foster doesn't have any arthritis at all - wonderful for a dog who's going on 14! - the vet said she was shocked at how good his skeleton looked. She said he has the spine and hips of a 2-year-old. The bad news actually has three escalating possibilities. There is a mass of some sort on his kidney. The best option is that he may have a serious kidney infection so she immediately put him onto an antibiotic and a strong pain med (apparently the problem with his mobility is that he is in a lot of pain, poor boy!). We SO much hope this is the problem. The next possibility is that he is going into kidney failure - this is an irreversible condition but can be treated for an unknown period of time before it would be fatal. The blood work that she did will tell us the answer to that question - the results should be back tomorrow so we'll be waiting for the phone call! The worst option would be that it is cancer. We refuse to deal with that possibility until we know more. In the meanwhile, we THINK he seems to be feeling a little better today. He did eat some food, but it looks like most of it came back up. But that's not really surprising since he's not used to eating hardly anything. We KNOW - he's just a dog - but we love him a lot and we sure hope we'll have his company for a while yet!
In the meanwhile, we are continuing to enjoy our trip in spite of everything. We actually don't mind being here at Old Town - it's small and old and very simple, but the people are nice and Joe, the host, has been great and filled with information for us. Today we took a ride into Gainsville and just drove around - mostly we wanted to find the campus of the University of Florida (go, Gators!) and locate the basketball arena for next week. Being New Year's Day, it was pretty quiet in town which was exactly what we were hoping for. What a pretty campus - all brick buildings with lots of trees and flowers everywhere. We stopped at Beef O'Brady's and got lunch, and then stopped at the mall where I bought a new pair of jeans - BIG extravagance!Yesterday was New Year's Eve, but we spent pretty much the whole day dealing with Foster and his visit to the vet so we didn't really do much else. We did come into town and went to this little sports bar called the Red Brick Bar and got a couple drinks around 6:00, but that's all we did for New Year's. When we got home I picked up the message from my mother about Patty, so obviously we spent the rest of the night waiting to see if there was going to be another phone call.Wednesday was really fun fo
r us, though. We spent the whole day getting our bearings in this area and seeing what was available for us to do. We stopped at Fanning Springs State Park, which is a big natural spring just a few yards away from the Suwanee River. We walked all over the park and got to see FOUR manatees just laying in the basin of the spring, enjoying the warm 72 degree water. It was great to see our first manatees of the trip. They are SO amazing. Then we drove about 40 miles out to Cedar Key, which Joe had told us used to be the Key West for that part of Florida. He told us it would be a nice place for us to put our kayaks in sometime. When we drove around the north sid
e of the key we were pretty much
NOT impressed - but then we came around to the south side and WOW what a difference. Lots of condos and shops and restaurants, a big fishing pier and a really cool area of shops, restaurants and bars sort of built up on a big section of pilings. I'm attaching pictures but I'm sure they won't do it justice. But, yes, it would be a really fun place to put the boats in and paddle around. There are some other small islands that would be very easy to paddle out to. We're de
finitely coming back. We sat o
ut on the deck of a neat bar and shared some nachos, soaked up the sun, had a drink and just kicked back for a couple hours - it was heaven! On our way back to the campground we pulled into Manatee Springs State Park, which is about 10 miles south of Fanning Springs. This is where we'll be moving to next week, so we wanted to check it out. We were quite pleased with it - it's another one of those great Florida springs with a "run" that goes out to the Suwanee River. Normally you'd be able to put kayaks in at the spring and paddle out to the river, but there was a sign that the spring run is closed until March so as not to disturb the manatees - but there are other options for putting the kayaks in so we'll worry about that next week. But the campground looks fine and Dave should be able to fish as much as he wants to. We think we'll definitely enjoy our two weeks in this area and are looking forward to the remainder of our time here. In the meanwhile, we have moved into January, the sun is shining (although it is still about 10 degrees below averyage) and there is NO SNOW! Life is good....
r us, though. We spent the whole day getting our bearings in this area and seeing what was available for us to do. We stopped at Fanning Springs State Park, which is a big natural spring just a few yards away from the Suwanee River. We walked all over the park and got to see FOUR manatees just laying in the basin of the spring, enjoying the warm 72 degree water. It was great to see our first manatees of the trip. They are SO amazing. Then we drove about 40 miles out to Cedar Key, which Joe had told us used to be the Key West for that part of Florida. He told us it would be a nice place for us to put our kayaks in sometime. When we drove around the north sid
e of the key we were pretty much
NOT impressed - but then we came around to the south side and WOW what a difference. Lots of condos and shops and restaurants, a big fishing pier and a really cool area of shops, restaurants and bars sort of built up on a big section of pilings. I'm attaching pictures but I'm sure they won't do it justice. But, yes, it would be a really fun place to put the boats in and paddle around. There are some other small islands that would be very easy to paddle out to. We're de
finitely coming back. We sat o
ut on the deck of a neat bar and shared some nachos, soaked up the sun, had a drink and just kicked back for a couple hours - it was heaven! On our way back to the campground we pulled into Manatee Springs State Park, which is about 10 miles south of Fanning Springs. This is where we'll be moving to next week, so we wanted to check it out. We were quite pleased with it - it's another one of those great Florida springs with a "run" that goes out to the Suwanee River. Normally you'd be able to put kayaks in at the spring and paddle out to the river, but there was a sign that the spring run is closed until March so as not to disturb the manatees - but there are other options for putting the kayaks in so we'll worry about that next week. But the campground looks fine and Dave should be able to fish as much as he wants to. We think we'll definitely enjoy our two weeks in this area and are looking forward to the remainder of our time here. In the meanwhile, we have moved into January, the sun is shining (although it is still about 10 degrees below averyage) and there is NO SNOW! Life is good.... 
No comments:
Post a Comment