From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2002-05-26 20:21:00 UTC
Subject: prednisone level question -- would greatly appreciate your
help
Steve and I have a question.
Please, bear with me; I am sick and will go over this and try to catch typos.
Warp (8 year old who had been a rescue with an MF, bad petstore, and
serious abuse background by two early owners but went on to have a
full life) has her multiple problems: insulin (Pred and Proglycem
both pegged and extra sugar given to keep her quality of life up and
joyful), an autoimmune problem with a friable small intestine, R
adrenal neoplasia (Lupron which is slightly holding her now),nad
apparently also lymphoma (We have a lympho clump and warpie's nodes
are going going up more over the space of just 12 to 24 hours now).
I'll be calling her vet tomorrow given how rapidly this is changing
now. It's not an emergency and she is not complaining.
*****My question is: what can happen if OVER the maximum level of
Pred is given? She doesn't have a long time left so might it --
during what bit of time she still has -- afford her more quality of
life or would it have a decent chance of impairing what time is left
to her? I know that it might be a chancy call, but if we can give
her more quality of life then that is what matters. She isn't acting
as if she is in pain, but the nodes are being to interfere with her
mobility. If pain begins but she still can have good quality of life
we'll add opiates. Have done it before and willing to request it
again; a teensy bit goes a long way with them. I have to tell you
that -- if memory serves -- we actually went above the max in
Meeteetse's last week and combined with pegged opiates it gave her
about 6 more days of quality time but we think Warp is more like a
couple of weeks to two months from death though Steve and a can't be
sure, so it's our guess.*****
She is still happily running, playing, wrestling, and slightly
climbing, but she is having impaired motion form the size of the
nodes and at times is less stable due to them.
We have found that we can spot it fast when her blood sugar gets too
low -- she gets cold on the extremities before she shows more obvious
signs so she is monitored carefully during activity. At times she is
passing out when her blood sugar goes too low during sleep but she
doesn't know when that happens -- just wakes up with us supplying
sugars.
She doesn't have long and we want to make that times as happy as we can.