0214A: Continuing Yoshi Care

Yoshi's latest blood test revealed minimal improvement in his red blood cell count but also an unexpected spike in his white blood cell count. As this indicates he's probably fighting off some sort of an infection, he has been prescribed to take an antibiotic for a while to clear things up. And since he just completed another series of his artificial hormone shots meant to support some of the functions of his damaged kidneys, we've also upped his daily iron dosage to give the hormones more materials to work with for recreating more red blood cells and platelets.

Yoshi does not like the taste of his antibiotic and he's been thrashing about when I administer his twice daily doses. His appetite is all over the place with him totally rejecting anything that we mix with his required egg whites and recent;y he has been fussy about his renal care specific dog food. Tonight I gave in and prepped some raw chicken breast pieces so that he'd eat. I can see he's hungry - he just doesn't to eat his prescribed dog food formulation. I suspect that the antibiotics are affecting his taste buds as is the case with humans, and so maybe a lot of things just don't taste so good while he's on medication.

At least the vets over at BSF have managed to make arrangements to have some Azodil brought into the country. They had to have someone bring it in from Hong Kong, which is tricky since the probiotic needs to be kept refrigerated while in transport. It costs an arm and a leg, but the drug helps Yoshi's system digest more complex materials that his kidneys are not longer filtering as efficiently as before.

Despite all this, Yoshi is as happy as ever and is actually at his goal weight of 4.2 kg - the heaviest he has been ever since this whole anemia/kidney disease problem was first identified. Now we just need to help him maintain this weight and make sure he's eating the right sorts of foods in order to avoid worsening his condition.