Hi everyone. Once again we must apologize for being late with the update on Blackie. However, we spent the night with her and we wanted to wait until a good twety-four hours had passed. As you can imagine this has been an ordeal that we do not wish for any fur-person or their parents to go through.
For those of you that are new to Blackie's tale, her story and progress have been diaried here, here, and here. For those of you that are members of the "Daily Kos Chapter" of her fan club, the support and healing mojo that has been sent her way has been incredible. We can't begin to thank you enough.
We do have some news to report about her progress and we are hopeful that maybe she has begun to turn the corner.
We took Blackie to the vet for a re-check. We were very concerned that the amount of fluid that was tapped from her lungs had increased again. This was distressing and depressing to both of us. We bought her home hoping that we would not have to take her to Portland again for another tap today. At this moment, that does not look like that will be necessary. Tomorrow is another day and from what our vet told us yesterday is that if her breathing does not become labored by Sunday night than we can wait until her next re-check on Monday morning.
The other reason that we are hopeful is that she had been eating a lot more food today than since she came home. The food she is eating is Hill's Prescription Diet a/d formula. We are not shillling for Hill's but it is our belief that many Kossacks may be familiar with the Prescription Diet line since they have pooties and puppies. And many maybe wondering what we are feeding her. She is also drinking a lot more water so these are both good signs. I just checked with my husband who has been in with her as I write this and he believes she is breathing just about normally.
She also has much more activity, in fact she has been walking around quite a bit today. She is very interested in where the two of us are at all times and we are trying to spend as much time with her. She continues to purr up a storm as this is her way of letting us know she is on the mend.
There is one more detail that we wanted to mention about her. In our first diary, Blackie told you about being rescued out of a tree. What Blackie did not tell you the time of year this happened. It was the Saturday after the 2004 election. As everyone will recall, this was a very depressing time for us since we were stuck with four more years of "chimpy-boy". Blackie was able to take away our hurt and shock at the election outcome by entering our household. She has been an integral part of our lives since then. It is our hope that she will make it to the 2008 election.
Once again, from all of us, we want to say "thank-you" for all the kind words, candles, pootie and puppy pictures, prayers, and healing mojo. We are simply overwhelmed by the love and support shown to our pootie. We ask that everyone please continue to keep Blackie in your thoughts and maybe we Kossacks can get her through this.
With much love and affection,
Blackie and her parents.
Update: It is now just past 9:00 P.M. out here. We are remaining cautiously optimistic about Blackie. The worry that we had is that we would have to take her in for another tap. We are thrilled that we did not have to do that. We know she is too!
Her appetite remains good. I just gave her some more food. In fact, the can was sitting by me as I was feeding her the "pootie popsickle". She decided that she wanted to try the food out of the can and then decided that the popsickle was more fun. Hubby spent the day feeding her kitty treats and she ate those too.
Blackie is also able to sleep more peacefully. This has to have been hard for her as she still has the staples in her and they have to irritate her. With luck, they can be removed in the coming week.
We have an appointment with the vet in the morning. We are hoping that we will hear good news. We will let the vet know what we observed. She is a fighter and is regaining some of her old spunk. She is more lively today and spent a good part of the day on her table gazing out the window.
Once again, we want to let everyone know how much the support, prayers, healing mojo, meditations, pictures and love that everyone continues to send our way means to us. This is just further proof of how much the progressive community cares and cares deeply. The love that our fellow Kossacks are showing our baby shows how wonderful this group is.
Thank you once again.
Blackie and her parents.