Erik

[cellio]

I talked with the surgeon. Erik is not coming home tonight. Probably tomorrow.

Biopsy report: severe cholangial hepatitis, severe pancreatitis, and by the way they found e coli in his gallbladder but IIUC the drugs they're giving him are knocking that down. Usually you starve e coli, he said, but (in his words) "we need to keep pushing the groceries into him".

White blood cell count is normal. He's anemic, but apparently that's normal given his condition. (I don't know if that means normal for this surgery, normal for one of the conditions he has, or what.)

He said probably the way to treat the pancreatitis is with steroids, but that can't start until he's healed up from the surgery. There's nothing we can do right now.

He was already being treated for the hepatitis; dunno if there's a dosage change coming or what. I need to review all of this with his regular vet, of course.

He declined to make a call on prognosis for all of this.

Meanwhile, I've talked with my manager about ways to accommodate the need for feedings every six hours (for a week or so). I'd been assuming mid-day runs home, but asked optimistically about taking over a small unused room and just bringing him in with me. (Probably won't work, but we need to ask the powers that be.) He suggested working half-days from home; I'll have to see if I can make that work.

Comments

[kmanista.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to let you know we're thinking of you and Erik and hope he comes home happy and healthy soon.

Also - if worst comes to worst - I live near you and am home all day, we could work something out. Just in case.

[cellio]

Also - if worst comes to worst - I live near you and am home all day, we could work something out. Just in case.

Wow, thanks! I got approval from all the relevant people to try the experiment of bringing him to work. If that doesn't work out, I'll talk with you about what's involved and you can decide if you're still up for this. (He has to get fed through a feeding tube right now, so it's not as simple as just putting a bowl of food down.)

(For any coworkers who are reading this and saying "WTF?" -- I'll be using the proto-shower, which isn't ready for its intended use anyway. So there's no carpet in there to retain cat hair that would pose allergy problems, and the door will stay shut while he's in there. And if this poses any problems, like he makes noise that bothers the people next door, we'll declare this a failed experiment.)