Well, I'm up keeping an eye on Yoda to see if he can get some sleep tonight or if we may as well take advantage of the UW Vet School's 24 hour ER tonight.  So I figured I'd post now to past the time...

Around 6:30 tonight, when I came home on my lunch break (2nd shifter - at least for another week) Yoda didn't want his dinner, which is odd for him nowadays.  Before his amp he used to put off his meals often, but since the amp he eats immediately (probably because of all the tasty bribes he got during recovery and the tasty wet food that now follows every meal with his K-9 Immunity and/or Piroxicam hidden inside).  He also didn't want to go out during my quick visit, but that's typical.

When I got home, he still didn't eat, which was doubly odd because he likes to eat when anyone comes into the house (whether a visitor or resident).  So I leashed him to go for his walk and wasn't surprised that he was hopping very slowly again - just as he did a couple weeks ago.  That was that long night I posted about (asking if any of Yoda's symptoms sounded familiar) when Yoda was hopping super slow and had difficulty getting comfortable (restless), and I brought him in for an emergency visit that morning.  By the time he was seen he was already improving.  The vet on duty determined that it was probably pain from tumor growth which Yoda's oncologist suspected was occuring in the back right leg - though no pain could be localized.  We ended up with a long thread of posts here about possible GI issues, but Yoda didn't present any further symptoms and when I talked to Yoda's oncologist she was confident too that it was probably a pain issue rather than a GI issue.

So, tonight, I prepared to give Yoda Tramadol, which they recommended 2 weeks ago if Yoda's Piroxicam (anti-inflammatory), which he was restarting that day for the cancer anyway, wasn't enough for his discomfort.  I called in to the UW vet school emergency first, just in case they thought he needed to be seen, but they said to go ahead with the Tramadol and see how that went.  The Tramadol did seem to help.  An hour later Yoda got up to drink some water of his own accord, though he continued to ignore his food.  Yoda was coughing every so often though.  He then began to pant softly, then breath heavily through his nose (mouth shut), then seem to breath normally, and has continued to go back and forth among those variations.  He seemed fairly comfortable despite all this, so I let myself drift off to sleep, but after some more coughing woke me up, I went to check on him.  He coughed again, sounding like he was going to vomit, but nothing came out and he laid back down.  It was on my way back to bed that I caught sight of a little spot of blood on the floor.  I looked around after that and found a splattering of several more drops next to the couch.

So I called the ER vet back.  She found it strange that it was just blood and not blood with saliva or vomit.  She felt he should definitely be seen in the next 24 hours, however, if he seemed comfortable, she was encouraged that he drank water and said that if I preferred to watch him and bring him in in the morning, that could be okay.  If I brought him in, they would do chest x-rays and then probably just observe him until oncology got in.  I wanted, and maybe pushed a little, to keep him home tonight and watch him, because I doubt Yoda would get any rest overnight at the vet's.  So I'm observing and as long as he doesn't cough any more blood or get worse in any other way, I won't take him in until the morning, when oncology is in.  We are very fortunate to live just a 10 minute drive from the Vet School (when there isn't traffice at least), otherwise I wouldn't probably wouldn't feel comfortable waiting and watching.  His cough still seems to be aggravating him from time to time, but no more blood so far and he does seem to be dozing in between.

So that's it for now.  Hopefully I'll be able to update before too long.