Cami's Journey

Welcome to Cami's Journey!  This is going to take some time, so grab a cup of coffee (or beverage of choice!), get comfortable, and prepare to catch up on Cami's life as we've known it so far!

I'm Cami's Mom, formerly known as "FM" on Cami's Facebook page!  Now I'm "Mommy"! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Camis-Journey/697128100304904?ref_type=bookmark

Cami was rescued from the Orange County Animal Shelter in Central Florida just days before Thanksgiving.  An owner surrender, it was stated that she had "mammary tumors and kidney failure".  The call for a foster home went out far and wide, via GetALong Dachshund Rescue here in Northeast Florida!

I saw her shelter photo and instantly fell head over heels in love with this very sick little girl!  At just 8 years old, abandoned by the family she had once loved very much, frightened, sick...we had to do something to help.  

Okay, so we thought we could be her "hospice home", giving her love and making her comfortable for whatever short period of time she had left on this earth.

We received copies of her shelter health records, including her blood panel.  Now I'm NOT a veterinary professional by any stretch of the imagination!  What I am is a woman who knows how to use the internet to search for answers or possible answers!  I plugged Cami's "numbers" into my search engine and nothing came back with "kidney failure".  NOTHING.  It did come back with the strong possibility of diabetes.

Oh goodness!  Can I handle a diabetic dog?  I'd only injected vodka into an orange before Cami!  Could I do this?  Could I give this little tiny girl 2 injections every day for the rest of her life?  Yes.  Yes, I can.  So the night before Thanksgiving, Cami came to live with us here in Jacksonville!

Life was grand, she fit right in, even making friends (sort of) with our old old Siamese cat, Frank!  Stormy and Miss Molly were "okay" with her, but not welcoming.  Okay is good to start, right?  It quickly got better than just "okay"!

With a houseful of company for Thanksgiving dinner, Cami was a little angel.  Not so much as one "accident" in the house...NOT ONE!  Always a good sign!

The day after Thanksgiving, we headed to our vet (Dr. Matt Wilson at Monument Road Animal Hospital) for a head to toe vet check!  With a suspicion that further blood and urine testing might be necessary, Cami got no breakfast and it's a good thing!  Dr. Wilson took one look at the blood panel from the shelter and immediately zoomed in on the blood glucose number!  Off to the back room for blood and urine testing!

The results were back quickly, so our wait in the exam room wasn't long.  Cami has diabetes.  Not "merely" diabetes, but diabetes mellitus with ketoacidosis.  The ketones in Cami's urine were literally off the charts!  This is serious now...VERY serious!

I learned to inject.  My hands shook.  I was nauseated.  Panic-stricken is a mild term for what I was feeling.  Can I do this?  Can I "hurt" this sweet girl twice a day?  Yes.  Just "yes".

Then we learned more about Cami's mammary tumors.  She didn't "just" have mammary tumors.  Cami's tumors were so many, so severe, that she needed a full dual chain mastectomy!  She'd been a breeder dog, pumping money into her former family's budget "season" after season until her health no longer allowed her to sustain a pregnancy!

So, we added dual chain mastectomy to the top of the list of "must do".  Then came spay.  Then the very necessary dental!

Let me tell you about this dental.  We thought Cami has stinky gas.  No.  No stinky gas.  Stinky, rotten mouth with several loose teeth.  SEVERE dental disease, severe infection.  

Cami's mouth was so seriously infected that she was on antibiotics for 110 of her first 120 days with us!

I got side tracked...sorry y'all...let me see if I can pick up the thread where it continued.

Georgia and I spent 2 1/2 hours in the exam room with Cami, Dr. Wilson and the vet tech.  We learned more than we ever wanted to hear.  Cami had a heart murmur.  Cami had at least one enlarged lymph node in her groin.  Some of the mammary tumors were symptomatic of malignancy.  Cami HAD TO START insulin IMMEDIATELY or we would lose her.

Lose this girl?  No.  We were determined, this was not going to happen.

So, Georgia headed to Walmart (yes, on Black Friday of all times!) for insulin and syringes, and I headed home with Cami to feed her since she'd been without food that day and HAD to eat before she could have the insulin!

Before I left the office with Cami, Dr. Wilson insisted I take the business cards for 2 different Emergency Animal Hospitals very close to home!  How scary is that?!

That first weekend was a struggle.  We were locked in a struggle for Cami's LIFE!  Never having been treated (or apparently diagnosed even) for diabetes, Cami had never had insulin.  With no way of knowing how her system would handle the small dose of 2.5 units, we were scared.  Scared half to death.

Now mind you, at this time, I wasn't home testing.  I didn't even know about home testing yet!  That gave me no certain way of knowing if Cami was hypoglycemic (VERY low blood glucose) after her injections or not.  All I could do was read, watch, pay a great deal of attention to Cami and her behavior and learn even more about what to look for!

We gathered a poorly stocked "crash kit" for her!  Karo syrup, peanut butter, her canned dog food!  At the first sign (that we could recognize) of hypoglycemia, out came the Karo syrup and right onto her gums!

We nearly lost her.  More than once, we nearly lost this little girl who had loved us from the first moment.  This little girl who had so quickly become a HUGE part of our lives.  This little girl we had fallen in love with via a post on Facebook!

Determination, coupled with the little bit of knowledge we had, kept her going.  And the phone calls from Dr. Wilson over that holiday weekend kept us hopeful!

What we quickly learned is this.  Cami has a HUGE will to live.  A HUGE determination to not only survive, but to thrive!  Cami does not give up and so we could do no less than to continue to fight for her!

We got her through that first weekend with a little knowledge and a lot of luck!  Her little body accepted the insulin and put it to work!  We breathed a huge sigh of relief...a temporary relief, as it turned out.

On the following Wednesday, Cami was hospitalized with bronco pneumonia!  Struggling to breathe, fighting for each breath she took, congested, running a horrible fever!  32 hours on an IV antibiotic (the big guns came out for Cami!) Baytril, and Cami was ready to come home to us!  

Our days were scheduled.  12 hours between meals and insulin injections.  Baytril at the proper times.  Another antibiotic with each meal.  (So many antibiotics now, I no longer remember which ones were administered during what time periods!)

Cami gained strength slowly, we struggled to continue to help her "bring up" the congestion from her lungs.  Another vet check after a week...Cami's great!  Her health restored...temporarily, at least!

Ahhh...fund raising begins in earnest!  

Do you know how many people told me I couldn't raise the money?  The holidays were NOT the right time to fund raise?  No?  Forget that!

Cami joined Facebook.  Through the efforts of Georgia, GetALong Dachshund Rescue and some very good friends and loving family, we got the word out about this little dachshund who was in a fight for her life and health!

Cami's Angels grew and grew...and donated and donated.  I know that many who donated couldn't afford it.  But, like Bill and me, they didn't feel that Cami could afford for them NOT to donate.  

We held little "auctions" for home made items, for fleece blankets, for photo magnets of Cami!  

Bill and I put our lives "out there" for all to read, to help them understand why WE couldn't raise this money from our own personal resources.

Cami's Angels came through!

January 10th (or so), Cami had her first surgery.  We had raised enough to cover the spay and half of her dual chain mastectomy as well as the pathology bill so we would KNOW if we were dealing with a malignancy or not.

I'm not going to go into the horror of Cami's recovery, I'll just tell you there WAS horror!  The bruising, the pressure bandages, the staples that went from "there to there".  Cami's little belly was described as "a Frankenstein" belly.

During surgery, Dr. Wilson examined Cami's insides...everything looked good!  The enlarged lymph node was normal!  Now the wait began.

SEVEN very long days and we had our report.  BENIGN.  Cami's tumors were BENIGN!    

And the fund raising struggle began again!  We begged, pleaded, robbed Peter to pay Paul with our personal budget and still came up a little short! Two wonderful Angels offered to "cover the balance" of Cami's second surgery!  Oh I cried.  I can't begin to explain how much I dislike asking anyone for help.  For Cami I asked.  And asked.  And asked.

And ONE month after the first surgery, Cami was going back in for the second surgery!

This one's scary.  With her dental facing her first, followed by the easier part of her dual chain mastectomy to follow, I was on pins and needles right along with all of Cami's followers!

Two and 1/2 hours and the dental portion was complete.  Can you imagine how bad her mouth was for it to take THAT long to do a dental?  All in all that day, Cami was in surgery for just over THREE hours.  Picture a diabetic dog, under anesthesia, on the operating table for over three hours.  Not a pretty mental image.

Cami came through like the ROCK STAR she is!  With the thoughts and prayers and warm healing wishes of so many people, all over the world, Cami came through with flying colors!

And now, I'll leave you here for the time being.  I'll pick this back up after we get back from running errands, after I test Cami's blood glucose...yes, I now home test...I'll bring y'all up to date on our darling Cami!