Sunday evening we picked up the weekend's toys and straightened the house to prepare for a busy week. After two short work weeks due to the holidays, we knew it'd feel like a long week. On top of that, Katie Wynn was starting daycare for the first time which we knew would take some adjustments. We went to bed early feeling prepared and ready for the week. Little did we know just how stressful this week would turn out to be...

Monday

Up early, Matt is dressed and gets Katie Wynn ready to leave. His front driver's side tire is low and needs airing up.
Katie bug is excited about her new backpack but doesn't know where she's going.

Katie Wynn bawls and screams at daycare drop off.
I hurry to get ready in time to drop Lolli off at the groomer's before work. My hair dryer starts smoking mid-blowout.
Lolli is dropped off at groomer with a request to clean up her matted fur but not to completely shave her if not necessary.
After work, Matt picks up Lolli. All of her fur has been shaved off on the coldest day of the year.
Katie Wynn bursts into tears when I arrive to pick her up. She has not eaten a single thing all day.
I leave Matt with a fussy baby to go have dinner with friends. Enjoy dinner, but am so uncomfortable from pregnancy indigestion that I stop at a gas station for medicine on the way home.
Climb into bed, thankful to have made it through the day.

Tuesday

Katie Wynn breaks down again at daycare drop off.
Matt drops his car off for scheduled service. After waiting for 40 minutes, he finally receives a loaner car and can head in late to work.
Hear from a friend after dropping off her child that KW's tears had stopped and that she was eating her breakfast. Feel relieved.
At work, realize that I need to come in the next day (my normally scheduled day off) in order to meet a deadline.
Matt's car is not ready to be picked up. He heads home in the loaner.
Katie bug cries again when I pick her up but her daily report says she ate both breakfast and lunch.
Due to no afternoon nap, we still have a very tired, fussy baby on her hands. While Matt cooks dinner, I entertain her with selfies on my phone.

After our selfie session, my little mama runs to her room to get supplies to change Baby Doll's diaper. Within moments, she has opened the butt paste and smeared it all over her face and in her hair.

Despite the car service frustrations, fussiness, and butt paste incident, we call Tuesday a good day.

Wednesday

Matt is up early again. Because the loaner car doesn't have a car seat, he takes my car to drop of Katie Wynn and then has to drive back home to switch cars. He is running late to work.
While getting ready for work, I realize that Lolli has not been outside yet. I pick her up from her bed and notice that something is not right. She is limp in my arms. I put her down and instead of standing up, she flops over. I cannot get her up to her feet.
Panicked, I throw on clothes and head to the vet. Send text to coworker that I will be late to work.
Lolli lets me cradle her like a baby - something she usually hates - and lays her head on my chest to rest. She is lethargic. I start to have flashbacks of Minnie's last days almost exactly three years ago.

The vet can immediately tell that something is very wrong. I leave her with him for bloodwork and x-rays and drive to work, forcing myself not to think of the worst.
I have a very busy work day.
Mid-morning, I hear from the vet. Lolli's glucose levels have bottomed out, she is dehydrated, and her body temp is dangerously low. She is too dehydrated for an IV, so he has given her medicine rectally and has her laying on a heating pad with hot water bottles to bring up her temp. She will need to stay overnight. I beat myself up for having her shaved when it's so cold outside.
Matt's car is still not ready to be picked up.
I work late to meet my deadlines and so I don't have to come in the next day. My mom picks Katie Wynn up since Matt will also be late getting home. KW did not eat at daycare.
Matt has dinner with the big kids so Katie bug and I eat over at my parents. She scarfs down some cheese tortellinis and we discover that she's a big fan of cucumbers.
We are late getting home and don't get Lil Bit in the bath tub until well after bedtime. She is cranky but finally dozes off to sleep.
We call it a night. It is weird without Lolli in the house.

Thursday

Katie Wynn is exhausted from three days at daycare and sleeps past 8. I force myself to get moving but despite my best efforts, don't get us out the door until nearly ten.
Thanks to poor planning on my part, we arrive at daycare right at nap time. Katie Wynn wails as I leave her.
I call the vet. Lolli's levels are getting better but they want to keep observing her throughout the day. She should be ready to go home late in the afternoon.
I spend the day working at my mom's house and am able to complete several embroidery machine projects that I'd been putting off. I'm amazed at how productive I can be without my tiny helper.
Around 4, I make the rounds to pick up my girls. Once again, Katie Wynn did not eat her lunch. I am thankful that I had given her a good breakfast. The vet is on the fence about letting Lolli go home. Her levels are still borderline but he thinks she'll perk up in her own elements. We leave the vet with medicine, special food, and instructions to feed her karo syrup three times a day.
Back at my mom's house, Lolli greets everyone with tail wags but then settles in on the couch. She is weak and cannot stop shaking. We let her nap.
Finally, Matt's car has been completely serviced and he returns the loaner.
Matt watches Wyatt's basketball game after work so he is late heading home. Mom has already cooked dinner so we eat over there. Lolli will not eat but, using a syringe, we manage to get a dose of karo syrup in her.
It's another night off-routine for Katie Wynn. After a quick bath, she settles in for a story with Daddy and then falls right to sleep.

We try to get Lolli to eat again. She has zero interest in the special food, so we try her regular food. It's a no-go too. I get out cheese, her favorite treat, and though she wags her tail and acts excited about it, she will only lick it. She continues to shake.
Unsure of what to do, I call the vet. He instructs us to give her another dose of the karo syrup and see if she will eat in the morning. "Don't hesitate to call at anytime tonight," he says.
We are both nervous about going to sleep. Instead of curling up in her bed, Lolli stays in the chair in our room. I make sure she has plenty of blankets. We put a heating pad under her bed in case she ventures over to it, and keep her food and water close by.
Katie Wynn is teething and wakes up several times. Each time we get up to check on her, we check on Lolli too. She stays put in the chair all night.

Friday

I am determined to get KW to daycare before nap time, so I don't let her sleep late. (I took her all five days this week to hopefully help her adjust to it.) We make it there by nine. She cries when I drop her off.
I have Lolli bundled up in the car and we head to my mom's house for another day of working on projects. She still has not eaten and continues to shake. Mom and I wrap up her pill in cheese and try to feed it to her. She spits it out three times. The pill finally starts to dissolve to where she can't spit it out and it makes its way down.
She spits out every piece of cheese we try to force her to eat. We get the syringe and give her more karo syrup.
Worried that she's not eating and aware that the weekend is coming, I call the vet. He will be out of town for the weekend so wants me to go ahead and bring her back in so he can check her out before he leaves. I bundle her up and drive over.
The vet and I talk about how weird it is that she seems to want to eat but won't. He's concerned about blockage and wants to put barium in her to watch it go through. I sign more paperwork and leave her with him.
At Mom's, I spend the day working on an art project for my niece's room. I am exhausted and take an afternoon nap on her couch.
I wake up panicked that I have not heard from the vet yet. I call to check on Lolli and she's getting ready to have one more x-ray done.
Katie Wynn did not eat her lunch yet again. But, she doesn't cry when she sees me there to pick her up and she waves bye-bye and high fives her teacher. I take it as a small sign of improvement.
We head straight over to the vet's and are led back to their workroom. Lolli is in a big cage that's low to the floor and Katie Wynn runs straight over to her. She waves and talks to her.
The vet and I look at her latest x-ray together. He sees a big mass that hasn't been passed; could be hard feces, could be something else. I start racking my brain for any missing toys around the house.
He needs to give her an enema and wants her to stay until she uses the bathroom. He thinks once she does, she'll feel like eating again. He is leaving to go out of town, but his staff will take care of her overnight.
Katie Wynn is precious and leans against the cage to give Lolli a kiss. The vet melts. In typical mom fashion, I wish I'd gotten it on camera.
A very big dog that's fresh out of surgery is laying on the floor (under covers). As we leave, Katie Wynn gently pats him on the head.
We meet Matt at home and have dinner together as a family. I have to clean KW's crumbs off the floor since Lolli is not there to do it for me.
Bath time is slightly delayed as our naked baby takes off running through the house. She's found the butt paste again and doesn't want to surrender it or Baby Doll in order to get in the tub.

Clearly, not eating at daycare is having zero effect on her big belly.  :) — Clearly, not eating at daycare is having zero effect on her big belly. :)

We survived the week! We drift off to sleep thinking this saga is nearly over.

Saturday (Today)

I wake up hungry and text my friend Emily to see if her family wants to meet us for breakfast. Our first restaurant choice is not open so we end up in two booths across from each other at Huddle House.
On the way home from breakfast, our favorite vet tech, Sarah, calls. Lolli is not doing well. I tell her we're in the car and will come straight there.
Back at the vet, we're led to their work room again. While we wait for Sarah, I get Lolli out of her cage so we can pet her and love on her.

Sarah updates us on what has happened since Friday afternoon. Lolli did use the bathroom (no hidden toys, thank goodness) but then passed a lot of blood and sloughed some tissue. Sarah is concerned that she has developed pancreatitis. Because they still can not get an IV in her dehydrated veins, they have been injecting fluids under her skin. Her body is quickly absorbing it. Sarah tells us she needs more care than they can give over the weekend and recommends her going to the emergency animal hospital.
Luckily, Sarah also works part time at the hospital and has a shift today from noon to midnight. She takes Lolli and her paperwork over with her and gets her admitted.
I am teary all day. Had we not chosen to admit her to the hospital, the other option was having her put down. Obviously we did not want that, but Sarah was also clear that she may not even make it through the weekend at the hospital.
I occupied myself with projects in the woodshop while Matt hung out with Katie Wynn at home. Around three, we got cleaned up and ready to go to the animal hospital. My parents kept KW since we didn't know what was in store for us at the hospital.
At the hospital, Sarah greeted us at the front desk and told us there was a bit of good news. In an exam room, we met with the vet on shift. She was incredibly nice but also incredibly scientific and over my head. Through tears, I tried hard to keep up with what she was telling us. She had gone through all of Lolli's files from the week and had done more bloodwork. All of her symptoms were pointing to one thing: Addison's disease.
Addison's disease is an autoimmune disease where her body has attacked her adrenal glands until they are no longer working. It is very rare and the vet told us she was lucky in catching it only because she'd had a case of it come through her office this past week. Because the symptoms can also be so many other things (see everything else from this week above), it's often called the Great Imitator and is misdiagnosed or not caught quickly enough to treat it. Poodles are one of the top three breeds susceptible to it (Lolli is a maltipoo so she has poodle in her) and it is more common in females.
There is a test that can be done to prove the diagnosis of Addison's disease, but because it is so expensive, the emergency hospital does not keep the supplies required for it on hand. We will have to have the test done Monday morning at our regular vet's office to be sure. But since all the symptoms line up, the vet at the hospital is going ahead and treating her for Addison's.
While we're thrilled to have somewhat of a diagnosis, Lolli is still in critical care. Normal sodium to potassium level is around 27. Sometimes a sick dog can go down to 26 or 25. When Lolli arrived at the hospital, her level was 12.9 which the vet said, multiple times, is not even equal to life. By the time we got there, she'd been receiving the correct fluids (finally in an IV) for two hours and her levels had already started adjusting but were still not where they needed to be.
She will continue to have fluids pumped and receive steroids every two hours. If she continues to respond well, they'll start tapering off the dosages or spreading them out. We hope that by Monday morning, her levels will be much, much better. Going forward, she will have to have a monthly shot and possibly take a daily pill to treat the Addison's disease.
We were thrilled when all the talking and paperwork was done and we could finally go back and see Lolli! She was laying pretty lifeless in her incubator until she heard our voices and she immediately picked up her head and pulled herself up to her feet.

We left the hospital feeling much better than we did on our drive there. She still has a long road to being fully recovered, but we are thankful that a full recover is possible.
At nine tonight, I received an update from Sarah. Lolli has been moved out of her incubator because she is maintaining her temp and her bloodwork is improving. Yay! She still is not eating yet though. I know that's ok right now while she's on the IV, but we've got to get her eating before she leaves there. We plan to visit her again tomorrow after church and will be taking treats with us.

This roller coaster ride has just about done me in this week! I am emotionally drained. Please keep Lolli in your prayers. Fellow pet owners know how much dogs (and cats, etc) can become a part of the family and we are ready to have Lolli home with us where she belongs!