Hi all-

Just wanted to give an updated on our sweet Blackie. It's now been 3 weeks since he was diagnosed with CRF. We've been doing aggressive fluid therapy at the vet clinic but tapered back to 3x/week last week and this week.

We had another blood test this past Monday and since Blackie's overall behavior/symptoms have greatly improved over past 2 weeks, we were hopeful for better numbers. Unfortunately, the results are worse. His BUN, creatinine, potassium and phosphorus numbers are alarmingly high. So it's really amazing to see Blackie doing so well considering the numbers! He is alert, eating, washing himself, playing, cuddling, etc. and no vomiting in 2 weeks!

Given Blackie's strong will to fight the odds, our vet is recommending we ignore the blood results going forward and just continue with sub-Qs until Blackie tells us otherwise. The vet feels sub-Qs 2-3x/week should keep him stable for now. The vet is very supportive of us doing the sub-Qs on our own.

So, we are now taking the step to now learn how to do sub-Qs ourselves. The vet and his wonderful staff gave me my first lesson with Blackie at the clinic yesterday. I watched carefully... fortunately, Blackie seems to be an excellent patient and just sits quietly (with his head tucked into my stomach). Even the staff commented at how good he always is. Tomorrow, my fiancee will join me and we'll get another sub-Q lesson. This time I'll be handling the needle with the vet's supervision.

Wish me luck!

Thanks for everyone's support and encouragement. I'm sure I'll need more of it once we start doing this at home... but just trying to take it a day at a time and not get too stressed about it.

Purrs,
Lisa