Wow, these past few days have been so emotionally draining.  After a great and non-eventful weekend with Kiwi, she took a turn for the worse yesterday and vomited again.  I took her to the vet (again) and not only  was she still jaundiced, but she had lost even more weight.  Last night the doctor called us personally to tell us the results of Kiwi’s latest blood work, and it was a very depressing conversation.  Her liver appeared to be worse than ever, and we were confronted with the possibility of needing a liver biopsy to find out if it was really cancer.  Needless to say, Tim and I were both wrecks by the time we went to bed.

But before doing any more serious medical procedures, we decided to consult a specialist for a second opinion.  So today we took Kiwi to an internist recommended by our vet and got some much better news.  Kiwi’s bilirubin count seemingly dropped 13 points overnight(!) and she is much less jaundiced now.  The doctor thinks that maybe Kiwi had a liver blockage or gallstone that somehow managed to pass or relieve itself just in the last 24 hours.

For now, we remain cautiously optimistic and are going to enjoy every minute we have with our dog.

Today the weather finally cooperated so our family went to the harvest festival at the Pumpkin Patch, a farm over at Sauvie Island.  We toured the animal barn, went on a hayride, rode the “cow train,” climbed the haystack pyramid, bought some local produce, and shared a caramel apple, an elephant ear, and some kettle corn (yum!)

Lex LOVES tractors:

the haystack pyramid:

the cow train:

Meanwhile, we’re so happy to have Kiwi back at home with us.  She seems to be on the mend (knock on wood) and has been keeping her food down this entire weekend.  We still can’t get her to swallow any of her pills, but we’re just happy that the vomiting has ceased.  And Lex loves his dog “Wee Wee.” He lights up when she’s near him (and today she purposely sat in his lap like that):

Yesterday Lex and I got the opportunity to tour the local fire station.  We joined Loretta and Gabby and some members of our old bible study group for a private tour.  A very kind fireman gave the kids a safety talk, showed them how quickly he can jump into his gear, and even let them climb onto the fire truck.

Lex mainly stayed by the fire engine, with a look of great admiration on his face.

I tried to get Lex to wear his cool new fire hat, but he’s still in his “anti-hat” phase, and this hat was taken off promptly.

The only thing cooler would have been if the firemen had been called to an emergency while we were there.  But I guess we should be grateful that there was no such event!

Ok, here are the final pictures from our Oklahoma trip.

Lex with his great-grandma Regier:

One of the highlights of our trip was visiting the Oklahoma Aquarium in Tulsa.  And yes, the irony is not lost on us that we travelled from the west coast to the midwest in order to see fish and ocean creatures.  But all of us had a great time!  My dad chased after Lex as he raced around the aquarium, so Tim and I were able to be leisurely tourists for a change.

We paid $2 and got to feed the snapping turtles.  It was really fun to attach the dead fish to a long pole with a clothes pin and then watch as the water suddenly swarmed with hungry turtles.

Well, that’s it for the pictures from our trip.  Lex was as good as he could possibly be on our flights to and from Oklahoma.  He even fell asleep for a little while!  But Tim and I both agree that if and when we fly again, we will definitely buy him his own seat next time.  Planes are too crowded and Lex is too busy to be sitting on our laps.  (But since we can’t seem to leave our two crazy dogs without some kind of drama, we might never leave the house again.)  Kiwi puked again today, so her recovery is questionable, at best.  I think I’ll end up taking her back to the vet tomorrow.