We found this table.
It's supposed to be a Duncan Phyfe table (whether original or reproduction I wouldn't know), and it has a leather inset in the top, which is very cool. I waffled about it for awhile, but at only $35 I decided to take a chance - and it was the right chance, because it does look great between the two chairs.
We also picked up this silver tea set, which needs polished up, but afterwards I think it will look grand.
I really love this! I hadn't thought about putting a tea set in the living room, but when we saw it, I was like, "Dude! I want that!" I thought it would go great with the theme of the living room, and I actually plan to use it - I love tea, especially in the winter. I'm not just using it for decor. (Sheesh, now I have the dubious task of "polishing the silver" - maybe I'm taking this sea captain's wife thing a bit too far). I don't know why there are two 'pitchers,' I would think with a tea set you'd only need one. So maybe one's an extra. But all this for $25 seemed a good buy.
We looked for a tea cart to set it on, but although they had three, we didn't like any of them. We'll find one, but meanwhile we can set it on the side table that's in the living room.
We also found this fireplace screen.
While it's not the most beautiful fireplace screen I've ever seen, it is pretty, and it was only $25. I've priced them. That's a good price. Later, if we find one we like better for the living room, we can move this one downstairs. We wanted a fireplace screen for the upstairs because, even though the fireplace has doors, when we want a fire we'll want the doors open - and then you need the screen (it didn't have a built-in one). The downstairs fireplace has a built-in, pull-chain screen, but the chains are broken, so it's kind of a pain - which is why this one could always serve down there if we get tired of and/or replace it in the living room.
Next to the fireplace, not very clear in this picture, are two more finds ... a set of fireplace tools (we didn't have any for upstairs - $12.00) and a bellows, not an antique but very pretty ($9).
So we got a bunch of awesome finds for the living room, for very minimal money. I'm pretty happy with that.
I'm not, however, happy with Tyler's trip to the vet yesterday. He had a yearly blood test done, a 'senior wellness profile,' which they recommend once a year, a practice with which I agree (since he is 14 1/2 years old). Last year's was perfect. This year the vet called me with the results today, and said everything was perfect, except one thing. His BUN and creatinine were elevated, which she said indicated the beginning stages of chronic renal failure.
To clarify two points, chronic renal failure (CRF) is a diminishing of the kidneys' function over time, not that they've completely stopped working. That would be acute renal failure, and an immediate emergency. Not to make light of CRF, as it is serious, and there's no 'fixing' it, you can only hope to slow the progression. Ultimately, in people as well as animals, it is fatal ... although whether or not it can be slowed to the point that something else is probably going to kill you first still remains the question to be answered.
The second point is that the vet did tell me that his levels were just right at the cut-off point of the 'normal' range. Meaning, they were elevated to the highest level of the normal range, but they weren't elevated beyond normal yet. That is in its own odd way, good news - at least they're not blown clear out of the normal range already. I guess it's kind of like 'catching it early.'
However, the other bad news is, for some stupid reason, in dogs, by the time the levels are easing out of the normal range, the dog's kidney function is already reduced to about 30%. Why in God's name they don't adjust their 'normal' range or devise a better test, I don't know ... but that's the way it is. I read online that even when a dog's BUN and creatinine levels are in the 'normal' range that just means their kidney function is 'at least 30%.' That seems kind of useless to me.
Moving on ... I don't yet know what to think about this. On the one hand, I was feeling kind of devastated. But on the other hand, as always with things like this, I was determined to find out as much as possible, and see what our options are for slowing the progression of this problem, and what the realistic prognosis is.
I did a little checking online, but that was more than less than unhelpful. (And I always taking anything I read online about things like this with a grain of salt, anyway). A couple websites said things like "In CRF, with proper care and maintenance, your dog may yet live months or years." Okay, I don't want to hear anything with "months" as a timeline. But then other websites I checked out said that with proper care and maintenance, a dog can go on to lead a mostly normal life, with little diminishment of quality or maybe even length of life (in other words, with proper care they'll likely die from something else before CRF will kill them).
So I don't know yet what to think. I have to find out more.
One other piece of information I'm weighing. The vet's office that I take Tyler to has about 9 vets that all work in rotation, so unless you request a specific vet and schedule your appointment accordingly, you just get whoever's on duty. Since Tyler's appointment yesterday was just for a checkup, I didn't request a specific vet. And I got stuck with Dr. DQ (Drama Queen), a vet I have had issues with in the past.
The reason I call her the Drama Queen is because she seems to have a penchant for diagnosing the worst case scenario first, then maybe tossing out other less dire predictions as an afterthought. It's almost as if she enjoys playing 'doom and gloom' with people.
I remember the first time she did this to me, I took Tyler in for something that turned out to be mild (so mild that I don't remember now what it even was), and her first response was that it very well may be a brain tumor. Only after I freaked out did she say, "Well, it might be this other thing," as if she very much didn't think that was likely ... and it turned out to in fact be 'that other thing.' She did that to me a second time, and I refused to see her anymore ... everytime I would call for an appointment, I would request a specific other vet that I had also seen there before, who I like much better. He's very cool, not prone to panic-mongering and dire diagnoses, approves of the holistic methods I prefer to use with Tyler's care and food, and is just all around a much better vet, in my opinion.
This time I didn't request him, because Tyler was only having blood work, so I didn't think it would matter who we saw. But since I drew Dr. DQ, she was the one who ultimately interpreted the blood test results, then called me.
Her only suggestion at this time is to put him on a special food (which I can only get by prescription, i.e., from them) which is very low in protein, the 'recomended' first defense against worsening renal failure.
I just read online today that this former approach - drastically reducing protein intake in CRF - is now coming under question. It may not be the best approach, after all. But apparently the jury's still out on that one, so I don't know.
I also read something that makes perfect sense to me. Dogs with CRF will urinate a lot more, because the reduced functioning of the kidneys cause more toxins to accumulate in the body, so to try and compensate, more urine is produced to try to flush these toxins from the body. So, dehydration is a real concern. For this reason, two of the first early symptoms of CRF are drinking more water and urinating more frequently (symptoms which, by the way, Tyler has not yet exhibited; although when I told Dr. DQ that, she said I probably just "didn't notice"). And because of that, it's important to keep the dog as hydrated as possible.
One of the recommendations to help with this is to feed canned or moist food instead of dry food. Well, to me, that just makes sense. But Dr. DQ offered me either the dry or canned version of their 'special kidney diet food', and never suggested the the canned would be better for him.
That's just one of the many things she does that concerns me. In all of my dealings with her, she strikes me as one of those types of 'doctors' who only looks at treating the tiny range of symptoms that she's looking at at this very moment, without concerning herself with the potential problems that treatment could later cause, figuring that "when that happens, we'll just add more drugs and chemicals to the treatment regime to treat the new problem." She as much as told me that - she said there's medication for CRF, but we don't need to put Tyler on it yet.
While of course I don't want to throw him on a medication he doesn't need, it's that mindset - we'll just deal with this one tiny aspect of the issue, and ignore everything else until we cause more problems, then treat those problems with more drugs, etc., etc. - that's the mindset that drives me nuts. Rather than focusing on mitigating damage and slowing disease progression, she seems to focus on just one aspect of the problem, with the idea that "when" - not if but when - more symptoms show up, then we'll add more treatments. I don't like that way to handle it. I'd rather do everything - everything - that has a chance of slowing the progression of the disease, now, rather than waiting till it gets worse.
I feel like I'm not explaining this well, but it's the best I can do right now.
Oh well, I'll stop going on about it. I've decided that I'm going to request a follow-up appointment with the vet I like, and get a second opinion on all this, and see what his thoughts are. And get as much information as I can for the best way to handle this.
For the record, I'm not trying to look for excuses to be in denial about this, or pretend it isn't happening. I know, sad and painful as it is, that Tyler's 14 1/2 years old, and that he's inevitably going to develop health problems, that he's not going to be around forever. I get that.
But I'm far from ready to just say, "Oh well, he's got this, all I can do is make him comfortable and basically give up." Not there yet, by a long shot.
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