Max's Road to Recovery

After a rough start to our week, Max has turned right around (thank goodness!)

I took him to the vet’s this morning (made the appointment on Tuesday when he was not himself at all) and they ran some more tests. We get the test results tomorrow or Monday (they wanted to redo the blood panel as he was so sick the first time they ran it and had borderline anaemia showing up with his toxic WBC – she wants to make sure that those were just attributed to the massive infection he was fighting and not a sign of something else). The vet agreed with the comment made here that his lethargy and his loss of appetite could definately be his withdrawl from the tramadol.

He tested negative for heartworm (he’s already been tested), lyme’s disease, ehrlichiosis and cushings (again – another thank goodness).

He still has an ear infection (yeast) in both his ears, so we got some new drops to use twice a day. The vet figures the excessive licking when his cone is off is either a skin infection (yeast), allergies, or a self soothing measure from his previous home. We got some shampoo for seborrhea and I finally got the okay to bathe him – yay! The vet feels the shampoo will help clean up his itchy skin and the dermatitis on the rims of his ears (although with the thyroid medication that his totally turned around his fur/coat/skin).

They did a stool test and all of the Coccidia are gone! They also did a urinalysis and everything came up clean/well functioning (no kidney problems or indicators of cushings).

When I picked him up from the vet’s, he was full of it and it’s ready to storm here, so I decided it was time to take our first trip to PetSmart. I’m happy to report it went very, very well. He was thrilled to hop around and smell everything and loved all the attention from the employees and two young children that were in the store. He was offered three different treats but didn’t take them (he’s just not food motivated despite his current “stature”) but was interested in the budgies as they were at his level. Not as interested as he was in the people petting him. He’s such a ham.

We’re home now and everyone is enjoying a Spot’s Chew dental stick (well – Max is enjoying his – Connor hoovered his down and is now stalking Max to see if he can score any more reminants). Mr. Casual decided he needed to follow me up the stairs:

And now – he’s found the squeaky mallard and is enjoying himself: