On Friday, October 2nd, Ralph coughed.
On Saturday, October 3rd, Ralph coughed a few more times.
He also added a nice gag onto the end of each of his coughs to make them sound that much more horrible.
Katie decided that, since it was now October, she had to make pumpkin flavored things.
She started off with pumpkin fudge.
It was a relatively simple recipe and it turned out delicious!
On Sunday, October 4th, Ralph coughed and gagged A LOT. All day and into the night.
This is a picture of Spooky Mikey.
Somedays, he would be very pale with dark circles under his eyes.
He was still experiencing unending stomach pain.
It was still keeping him up at night, so he spent most nights on the couch falling asleep to Marvel movies. I would join him, bunking on the other couch, to make sure the TV got shut off after he fell asleep.
Monday, the 5th, Mikey had his appointment with a gastroenterologist at Seattle Children's Hospital.
We had a good talk about what was going on.
With no apparent diagnosis to be made based on all the tests we had done so far, the doctor decided to move forward with an endoscopy and colonoscopy based on our "family history" (meaning Katie).
The earliest we could schedule it was for the Monday before Thanksgiving.
And, get this.
Katie has HER follow up endoscopy for EOE on that SAME DAY.
And both of them would be taken care of by the same doctor.
It will be day of medical procedures.
Huzzah.
Ralph could not stop coughing. Every time that he moved, he coughed.
I was pretty sure that it was Kennel Cough. But, I wasn't quite sure where he could have caught it. He hadn't been around any other dogs since August.
I called the vet hospital to get him an appointment. They were booked out for 2 weeks with no available appointments. Sometimes, kennel cough can just go away on its own, I booked the appointment and hoped that it would just fade away.
In the midst of all the crazy that day, we took some time to get our flu shots.
As the day progressed into night, Ralph began to take shallow and rapid breaths and his energy level decreased. He also began to hack up globby stuff onto our floor and carpet.
I had seen these symptoms before. In my kids.
When Mikey is sick and things take a turn for the worse and he ends up with pneumonia, this is what happens.
It was obvious that I couldn't wait two weeks for Ralph to be seen.
So, on Tuesday, October 6th, I packed him up and took him to the 24 hour emergency vet.
"Um.......wheeze, wheeze, hack, hack, gag, blech....where are we?"
Current COVID safety protocol for vet hospitals in our area is that the vet tech comes out and gets your dog while you stay in the car.
The dog goes in to the hospital and is examined. Then, the vet calls you to discuss.
They took him in, gave him an examination, watched him for a bit and then decided to take some x-rays.
Yep. Pneumonia. In both lungs.
It's just a sad state of affairs when I am so familiar with the symptoms of upper respiratory infections that I can notice them on sight IN MY DOG.
They sent him home with two powerful antibiotics, a probiotic to combat yucky tummy from the antibiotics, a suggestion to use our nebulizer (Of course we own one! Who wouldn't?) to help loosen the gunk in his lungs and to keep a close eye on him as they next few days were critical. Sigh.
I couldn't find any saline for the nebulizer in any local drugstores, so I had to order it off of Amazon.
That night, I began sleeping in our basement to keep an eye on Ralph.
We covered the whole area with towels so when he hacked up his yuck it would land on the towels and not our carpet. His breathing was so labored, we were worried he might not make it.
Mikey moved back upstairs to try sleeping in his bedroom since Ralphs hacking kept him awake when he was on the couch. He used his laptop to watch movies if he needed help falling asleep.
To take my mind off of all of this craziness, I decided to make some slow cooker apple sauce.
It was just okay.
Needed more spices.
I was able to get saline for the nebulizer the next day.
Yay for Amazon Prime.
Ralph tried to get away from the machine the first time, but soon got used to it and would settle down for a nice nap while he got his "steamies".
Not anywhere near as entertaining as Katie "steamies".
Just about equal in sad factor to Mikey "steamies".
And not quite as "What the HECK?" as this shot of BOTH my kids doing "steamies", in the urgent care and BOTH being diagnosed with pneumonia at the same damn time.
Hmmmm.
Enough "reminiscing".
We were still doing our "Kids Make Meals Once a Week" thing.
Mikey chose to make Spaghetti Bolognese this week.
Katie baked up an original creation that weekend.....
S'mores Lasagna.
Which included making our own egg and dairy free marshmallow fluff, melting dairy free chocolate and making a crushed GF/NF/DF/EF graham cracker crust.
The finished product.
It was ooey-gooey delicious.
We headed out to a local farm to conquer their corn maze and pick out our pumpkins.
There were many COVID protocols in place, one of which was that we had to reserve a time to arrive so they could manage the crowds. We picked 9am.
We decided to head out to the corn maze first.
We had to get on the hay ride to get out to the field.
This particular farm had a Washington State themed corn maze.
We entered on the eastern border of the state and had to make our way across to the western border.
Off we go......
For once, Mikey let Katie take on navigation duties.
He was too busy faux-fighting with Huzbend the whole time anyways.
Instead of just plowing across to the exit, we explored a bit.
We made it to the Canadian border.
And, paid a visit to Mt. Baker.
We stopped by the Space Needle and the Gum Wall in Seattle.
We also found our hometown somewhere in there.
Then, we traversed the very precarious Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
I wanted to take some pictures from the bridge, but someone was itching to move on.
How can you ignore this?
We stopped by Olympia.
And, found some goats?
I don't know why there were goats in there.
We made it!
There were other activities on offer at the farm.
They had these cool tractor buggy things to ride.
Yes. Even adults could ride.
Mikey's tractor was not quite working for him.
Lots of struggle.
Mikey got stuck, so I rode his buggy back to the parking area.
Hey, remember those goats we found in the maze?
They had a platform to climb up to take a look around.
We decided that Ralph was secretly related to cows.
Time for the burlap sack slide!
Next up were duck races.
Katie's pump didn't work.
So sad.
Mikey's duck beat mine.
The last activity we did was throwing stuff.
And, you better believe that we Purel'ed like no ones business after every one of these activities!
Yikes.
On to the pumpkin patch!
Huzbend decided to forego the wheelbarrow this time around.
This way no one would get a ridiculously huge pumpkin and they would only be able to grab ONE.
His plan worked.
I got a pumpkin too.
And, one for Ralph, of course.
I can carry two pumpkins of average size.
As a surprise, I packed up some hot cocoa for the kids to enjoy when we got back to the car.
They were very happy.
At the beginning of the next week, I decided that Ralph was just not recovering.
Even with all the antibiotics and the "steamies", he was still hacking frequently and coughing up goobers.
I called our regular vet and she asked to see him the next day.
A brief nap for Ralph on the sun-warmed floor of our kitchen.
In the meantime, Mikey was realizing that remote learning in middle school required just a bit more effort than in 5th grade.
He decided to step up his game.
I created a montage of his efforts to the 'Karate Kid' song "You're The Best" by Joe Esposito.
(Mostly to make him laugh. The montage was his idea, but he didn't know I would actually make it)
At Ralph's appointment, the vet decided that he was definitely not sounding better and was not reacting to the huge dose of antibiotics he was being given.
They did some follow up x-rays that showed that his lungs were STILL filled with gunk.
We decided to do a procedure called a tracheal wash to find out what was in the gunk in his lungs.
I dropped him off early the next morning for the procedure.
"Do I have to go back?"
He was not very excited.
Everything went fine for the procedure.
After a few days wait, we had the results.
It seems that Ralph had a high level of eosinophils (a type of white blood cell that marks inflammation/infection - Katie had them in her esophagus leading to her diagnosis with EOE) in the gunk they took out of his lungs.
This was leading the vet to believe that it wasn't pneumonia that was causing this issue but a disease called eosinophilic bronchopneumopathy. This disease is idiopathic (meaning doctors don't know what causes it). But, it's thought that it's a hyperreaction to aeroallergens.
Sigh.
The way to treat this disease is to combat it with long term steroids. Prednisone to be exact.
Prednisone is a wonder drug. It acts quickly to resolve inflammation. People can take it too.
The problem is, that it's so strong that there are a myriad of bad side effects that come along with it.
Ralph was to be put on an initial super high dose to knock out the coughing and then taper off to control the coughing.
With the super high dose, he'd have to deal with: increased thirst, increased hunger, increased urination, panting, and lack of energy.
Having been on staff at a vet hospital, I was already aware.
I wasn't happy about the steroids, but there really wasn't another choice.
STINK BUG!
With Halloween inching ever closer, we decided to go through Mikey's old costume bin.
Nothing would fit him anymore, so he decided to donate them to a local clothes bank.
I sometimes miss the old days of three to four costume changes a day.
Here are a few costume gems:
Katie was tasked with creating a menu and cooking a meal for us to earn a badge for Girl Scouts.
She's a Senior Girl Scout now.
Ambitious.....
Mmmmm.
She also knocked out the panna cotta along with a raspberry sauce to go on top.
Later in the afternoon, she fried up the meat for the manicotti filling.
If you know Katie, you know that this was a struggle.
She does not like touching slimy/yucky things.
She powered through and hand filled all of the manicotti.
Next, she moved onto one of her TWO appetizers, bacon wrapped dates.
Here's the other appetizer.
Caesar salad.
OMG.
It looked and smelled SO good.
Here she is with the dinner portion of her meal.
Mikey was ready for the oncoming gorge-fest.
(I'm not sure his tummy was)
If you were wondering, Katie could not eat the manicotti. She had a baked potato, bacon wrapped dates and salad for dinner.
Right before dessert was served, Katie filled the cannoli.
Since she and Mikey couldn't eat the cannoli shells (they had a nut warning and contained wheat), she made cookie sandwiches with the leftover filling.
Here are all three of her desserts.
I thought the panna cotta was perfect.
The raspberry was a fantastic compliment to the creamy custard.
I could've eaten three of these and they were pretty big.
Her meal was a big success.
Another doctors appointment.
Just a follow up.
No new diagnosis.
Mikey had his picture taken for his school ID.
(COVID protocols were followed in the making of this photo)
The steroids were doing a number on poor Ralph.
He started to become incontinent and so we had to get him doggie diapers.
Every once in a while Katie's girl scout troop does a "Cupcake Wars" meeting.
They pre-make the cupcakes and then have to decorate them on the fly during the meeting.
This time they gave the theme ahead of time - Halloween.
Unfortunately, they cancelled that portion of that weeks meeting.
Katie was bummed. So, I told her she could still decorate them if she wanted to.
They came out great.
She would've won for sure.
The steroids continued to do their job.
Ralph stopped coughing and hacking.
The problem was that he was not able to hold his pee, was very weak and tired (no longer climbing stairs), was not excited to see us or interact with us, started to not be interested in his food and began losing weight and muscle mass.
He wasn't himself.
I wanted him off steroids.
Problem is, you can't just stop steroids. You have to wean off.
I made another appointment for him to be checked out by the vet so she could give the okay to start decreasing the dosage. I was to drop him off a few days later.
There were only three days left until Halloween!
The kids decided to carve their pumpkins on that Wednesday.
On a normal year, Ralph would be ALL OVER those buckets filled with pumpkin guts.
He loves to sneak nibbles and eat seeds when we aren't paying attention.
This year, he just parked it on his kitchen bed.
She's not fooling anyone.
But, I think Ralph is a little jealous.
Mikey always seems to have the most trouble cleaning out his pumpkin.
I am happy to report that as I was helping the kids with their designs, Ralph got off of his bed and ate out of Mikey's pumpkin gut bucket.
Never underestimate a Lab. Even when he's sick.
Mikey settled on a Darth Revan design.
Darth Revan is his favorite Sith lord.
Katie picked Hatsune Miku for her pumpkin.
Here are the finished products....
Oooooooooo
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh
Here they are in daylight.
They both did a good job cutting them out with minimal assist from me.
Katie's survived with some toothpick props.
The next morning, I had to drop Ralph off for his exam.
Katie wanted to get up to say good bye and give him some gentle hugs.
"Another car ride?"
"The vet? Again? Sigh."
While Ralph was at the vets, I took my mind off of things by carving his pumpkin and mine.
For mine, I chose Baby Yoda.
And for his, I chose this iconic scene that has played out in our backyard countless times....
The vet called and said that Ralphs x-rays looked great.
There was huge improvement in his lungs.
She was concerned about his myriad of side effects from the steroids though.
We agreed that it was time to start decreasing his dosage.
As you can see, it was a VERY slow process.
For his next Kid Made Meal, Mikey picked burgers with a bacon-onion jam.
Here's Huzbend teaching him how to light the grill on fire....
.....and then, how to take the temperature of the meat your incinerating.
It was Halloween!
This year, Halloween was on a Saturday.
We decided to meet some friends for some masked/socially distanced fun at another local farm.
The kids hadn't seen each other in about 5 months or so.
As we sat in the parking lot waiting for the others to arrive, we witnessed a family in a minivan get stuck in the mud on a slight decline while parking. They couldn't get out.
I got out to help - masked up, of course. Me and another gentlemen tried to push them out but to no avail.
I did get a thank you and my pants and jacket splattered with mud.
So, it was worth it.
Another hay ride out to the corn field.
This was the most complicated corn maze I had been in.
We split into three groups and raced each other through the maze.
The moms.
The teenagers.
The tweens.
The corn maze was treacherous.
I don't remember it raining enough to cause such muddy conditions.
There were huge puddles and not a bit of solid ground in sight.
Most of the mud was the shoe sucking kind.
A photo of my mom pals navigating the puddles.
It was bad.
When we were at the entrance to the maze we saw people that were going to enter with bright white sneakers or even HEELS and the employees were warning them not to go in.
Our group were prepared with boots.
I mean, who goes to a farm without BOOTS for cripes sake?
The teenagers beat us.
Boo.
Moms came in second.
And, low and behold, after getting turned around just once, Mikey navigated the tweens out of the maze.
He was very proud of himself.
As with any tourist farm in October, there are PLENTY of other activities.
The kids all rode on the Cow Train.
WHEEEEEE!
We spent a bit more time at the farm and then called it a day.
It was great to hang out with friends for a bit.
It was almost like normal. Almost.
We headed home to see that Huzbend, who had stayed home to watch over Ralph, had carved up his pumpkin in a Mandalorian theme.
As you could guess, this Halloween was not like any other Halloween.
First, I had to stay home with Ralph as he wasn't too sure on his feet and wasn't ready for a big walk. Especially in the dark.
We weren't going to do door-to-door trick or treating.
Most people had tables outside their houses for grab-n-go candy or other creative ways to get kids candy without getting too close.
And, of course, lots of Purel and masks.
Here was our candy table.
I arranged our pumpkins in our front yard.
Oh. That's Spike the Halloween dragon there in the background.
Everyone got their costumes on and headed out.
Katie - MEIKO, a Vocaloid
Mikey - Deku from My Hero Academia
Huzbend - rocking a wolf onesie
Here was our set up at night.
Not too shabby.
Ralph and I sat at the top of the driveway to make sure no jerks came and took all of the treats on the table.
Have fun!
There were plenty of candy tables out and ready.
There were creative candy distribution systems too.
Like this candy chute. The candy came out of the mouth.
I'm not sure if he got distracted by the full moon, or his candy bag was too heavy or what, but Mikey took a spill off of a curb, twisted his ankle and scraped up his knee.
Huzbend carried him back home and that was the end of trick or treating for the night.
All of the candy that was gathered was placed into the garage to sit for a few days to "de-germ", as recommended.
I had plenty of "safe" candy for the kids (and us adults) to eat in the meantime.
Katie finished off the night by visiting her town in Animal Crossing for some Halloween fun.
On a side note:
The end of October marked a little under two months since I had slept a full night in my bed.
Sigh.
