You may remember, if you read the July 4th post, that when our vet checked Dusty, he heard a heart murmur. Although Dusty shows no signs of any heart problems, he recommended a visit with the local veterinary cardiologist and gave us some medication that had been shown to help prevent the progression of a leaky valve, if that's what it was. He suggested we might want to get an echocardiogram to find out for sure. Dusty has been taking the medication for a month. It seemed to make no difference in his energy level, which is quite high, although you can't tell from this photo.
In the meantime, if you read last week's blog post, you may remember that one of my hearing aids stopped working. I was going to have to make an appointment with the place where I got them to have them looked at. I used one of Charlie's for the time being. I had to turn it up a bit, though. With some difficulty, I paired that one with my phone, but that unpaired the other one I was using, a real nuisance. I called the audiology clinic where we bought our hearing aids and found out that, since they are out of warranty, it would cost $80 for them just to look at it. I had received something from our insurance company saying that hearing aids were covered for people who needed them but didn't have them, not mentioning if there was any coverage for people like me, who already had them. I called the number in the mailing from the insurance company and found out that hearing exams were covered with a $60 copay if it was in their network. The only provider in their network in Bend was HearUSA, a different one from the one where we got our hearing aids, so I gave them a call. Their audiologist will be on maternity leave, so I will have to wait to see her until October, but they offered to have a look at my hearing aid. I took my malfunctioning hearing aid in to them on Monday. It turned out to be a quick fix. It had wax in the tube and just needed a quick cleaning. My copay: $0.
I had to get another 25-day supply of Dusty's medication on Monday and picked it up when I went to HearUSA, which is right around the corner from the vet. The medication is very expensive and works out to be about $100/month, which was a real bummer, but Dusty is very important to us, so we were prepared to give up some other things. He was groomed on Thursday and our appointment with the cardiologist at Bend Animal Emergency And Specialty Center was Friday. Dusty had a clump of something on his chest. We couldn't tell whether it was a scab or some hardened pitch or sap. It turned out to be the latter. The groomer was unable to get it off, but they did the best they could to clean and clip around it. However, the cardiologist's technician had some goo remover and was able to get most of it disconnected from Dusty's skin. They shaved the rest of it off when they took him in for his echocardiogram. The cardiologist confirmed that Dusty does have a heart murmur, but it isn't very pronounced. He said that X-rays that showing enlargement of the heart can be misleading, because it's a 2-D picture of one moment in time. The heart swells and contracts as it works, which can make it appear larger or smaller in an X-ray. Dusty went off with them and got his echocardiogram. When the cardiologist came back into see us he had good news. There is some thickening of the mitral valve, which causes the murmur, but it's very slight. There's no heart enlargement at this point. He said that 75% of dogs with this condition never experience progression enough to warrant treatment, and live normal lives. The other 25% may need the medication he's been taking to slow down the progression. Right now, he doesn't need it. No restrictions to activity or diet are needed for him at this point. His recommendation was to monitor the condition in his regular checkups, perhaps an annual checkup with the cardiologist and periodic echocardiograms if needed. Otherwise, he said, "let Dusty be Dusty." That was very good news! The medication I just picked up can be donated to help someone who can't afford medication for their dog. It will be way past its expiration date by the time Dusty needs it, if ever. An annual echocardiogram would be much less than this medication.
Monday I got the story for Friday written and took the photos on Tuesday. The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday were spent mostly with the dreaded H-word, as I wanted to be sure we didn't have a lot of dust where Soren would be sleeping, because of his asthma. We dusted and vacuumed, and then set up the air purifier in the guest room. The family arrived on Thursday, in plenty of time for supper. They had various activities planned to keep the boys busy. Part of the time involved Dusty keeping them entertained and vice versa.
Dusty was disappointed that they didn't bring Louis this time––a stop at the fossil beds at John Day earlier in the week and two nights in a motel made bringing Louis impractical––but Dusty had a good time chasing the ball and the boys in the backyard, in spite of the record-breaking heat.
One of the family's activities was to do some canoeing, using a canoe they borrowed from some friends who live here.
On Sunday morning, before it got hot, we all went (in two cars) to the new Alpenglow Community Park. The place is huge and includes a magnificent dog park and a huge playground with a splash pad. The trails are paved, so stroller-friendly. You could easily walk a mile with just one circuit of the park. Dusty enjoyed some off-leash time and doggy interaction, and the boys had a nice walk and then cooled off at the splash pad.
Also during this visit, the adults had an evening of mezcal tasting after the boys were in bed. We enjoyed a curated tasting experience from Flaviar.
The pattern is designed for the larger Happy Kidz dolls, but I used thinner yarn and smaller needles to get a smaller gauge. I figured out the gauge needed by dividing the pattern gauge by .8 (point eight). You get more stitches/inch, so you have to figure out what size needles will give you that gauge with the thinner yarn. I looked through previous projects in my Ravelry project page to find something that had the same gauge.
What's in The Doll's Storybook: The Writer is working on the cover for the new book, and Billy, who has been helping, comes to tell the dolls they need to keep their voices down, because she finds it distracting, and she has to concentrate in Shhhhh!
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