Pets and Disease

Xena is a Cairn Terrier. We rescued her from a shelter in York, NE about 3 years ago and discovered on the 2+ hour car ride home that she gets car sick. Not a pleasant drive! It didn’t take us long to figure out once we got her home to find out the “she is already housebroken” statement wasn’t exactly true, and she didn’t know the hand signals that our previous dog knew. This was going to be a different experience!

Man, you can say that again!

On 2/6/08 Xena was diagnosed with Addison’s Disease. In a nutshell, her adrenal glands no longer work and she can’t produce certain hormones that one needs to produce to stay alive.

Getting a diagnosis was a long and expensive process. I had more than one well-meaning friend ask if we were going to “put her to sleep”. Now don’t get me wrong..if it came to having a roof over my family’s head and food on the table, or paying the vet bills, the family would come first (most days anyway). But once we got the diagnosis and discovered Addisons is treatable and that she can live a long, normal life, I was primed to enter a whole new world.

Xena takes a small bit of prednisone every morning (she prefers it in piece of ham) and every 28 days she heads to the vet for a shot of a miracle drug. Miracles are expensive, but luckily for us Xena only weighs 16lbs. The meds cost us less than $15 a month. Some large breeds pay over $100 for the same treatment. Every few months we pay $35 for a blood test to check her electrolytes.
Yes, we have had scares. I had to change vets when ours at the time of diagnosis said “when she starts having tremors again it is time to come in for the shot”. I wonder if they have their diabetic dogs come in for insulin when they are in a coma? Dang. I have rushed her to the emergency vet thinking she was having an Addisonian crisis, when she had actually had food poisoning (that’s another story). I’m hyper-vigilant to her moods and behavior, always wondering if she is ok.

So yes…pets and disease can be tough. Heartbreaking. But in our situation it is ok. We made it through the tough part and she will live a long full life, and will fill our lives with joy (well…not Roy’s life, but Xena shouldn’t take it personally. He just isn’t a pet person).

I am thankful that Xena is a member of our family.