Me and My Pneumonia

I'm sure you won't mind if I write about myself again, since I am such an interesting subject!  And anyway, when I'm sick, all I can think about is how yucky I feel, and how I wish I was all better again.  I think most people and animals feel this way, but I guess I could be wrong.

Well, yesterday Mom took me to visit Dr. Patricia, who was very interested in how I was doing.  Dr. Patricia looked at the x-rays of my lungs that got sent over from Mission MedVet, and then she came into the exam room, and she listened to my breathing and to my heart.  Then Nurse Debbie weighed me and took my temperature, and my temperature was normal, but I lost a pound since I was there on Saturday getting filled up with fluids.

Then while we were there, the radiologist came to the clinic because it was her day to do that.  So she looked at my x-rays, and then I got new x-rays taken, and she looked at those also.  And all of this took a really long time, like over two hours, and it was past our suppertime, so Mom and I were hungry.

Anyway, the radiologist said that I definitely had pneumonia.  And she said the way I got it was that I had an infection someplace else in my body, and then the bacteria went swimming through my blood until they got to my lungs, and they gave me pneumonia.  And probably the infection that I had was in my intestines where the Ten-Inch Thing got stuck.

Dr. Patricia brought the x-rays in the room and showed them to Mom, and she pointed out the fuzzy parts where the infection was, and the non-fuzzy parts where the infection used to be but now it's going away.  Which means that I am getting better, but I'm not all well yet, which is why I still feel yucky.

Then Dr. Patricia said I should keep taking Doxycycline and also I should start taking Baytril.  But I don't have to take Clavamox, so Mom got to trade that in for the Baytril, and it almost came out even.  Then Mom paid the bill, which was $181, and we went home and ate supper.  But I have to go back there today because Dr. Patricia wants to see me again.

Oh, and Dr. Patricia said that Mom shouldn't let me do anything at all, like just sleep and eat and potty.  She said it was the same as when a human is on complete bed rest.  Except that Mom does not want to get out a crate to make me stay in, so she told me just to sleep a lot and not do much else.  Which is an easy command for me to obey, at least so far.

And guess what else!  The people at the clinic did not want to keep my Ten-Inch Thing, for some reason, so they asked Mom if she wanted it.  And she said she did because she wanted to clean it up and figure out what it was.  So she washed it and untangled it, and she found out it was a long piece of stringy yarn stuff, with a chewed-up bit of green plastic in it.  Mom still cannot figure out where this piece of string came from, because it doesn't look very much like the pink blanket, but maybe it is the pink blanket.  Mom is not sure, and I'm not going to tell her where I got it.  And I am also not going to tell where I got the green plastic thing to chew up, but I do remember that I liked chewing it.

Anyway, when Mom got the whole thing cleaned up and untangled, it turned out to be FIFTEEN inches long, and not just ten!  So I think I was very clever to get it all inside me and then to get it all out of me again.  Of course, I did end up with pneumonia, so I guess that part wasn't so clever.