Estrella farewell

On October 15 2021 Estrella came to live with us, she left June 9 2023.  

Farewell dear Estrella! After seeing you 4 years alone in your cage, fantasizing we would just grab you, you came to us, and stayed almost two years. But all really good things come to an end.

She suffered from an insulinoma, a malignant growth in the pancreas, excreting excessive insulin, causing glucose in the blood to be extremely low. The moment that is noticeable it’s already too late. Prognosis is bleak. We had an appointment for a diagnostic utrasound the morning of June 9, but the evening of June 8 it was clear there was no future, and we had to (make) let you go.

We had noticed some signs early on. Sometimes she would stumble. Fall clumsily off the sofa when stepping off.  Strangely crossed her front legs sometimes when walking.  But, don't we all? Mentioned it to the vet last year, but it was not that severe, could be something neurological, and we decided we'd just keep an eye. 

About a 3/4 year ago she would be reluctant to walk on, especially when we reached the end of the walk, and were on the way back home. She would drag, and be unwilling to walk the same pace with us.  Blamed that on stubbornness. This dog had character, you know.

April this year the stumbling became worse, and early May she had what we thought was an epileptic seizure in the afternoon. Took her to the vet later that evening, as the seizures did not really pass. Sedation is the treatment for epileptic seizures. Normally a seizure should then pass, but it didn't. She needed supervision and controlled sedation during the night, which requires 24h monitoring. Nearest that was available was the Vet Hospital in Murcia. Off we went, with a moaning Estrella all the way. She did not enjoy all of this, and neither did we.  The vet had also heard a murmur in her heart. It could even be a heart attack!

They did a blood analysis. What stood out was very low glucose.  That can be the the after-effect, or the cause, of seizures, or a heart attack.  They would take care of her and let us know in the morning. We were home at 3:30 in the morning.

They called: she's up and about! They gave her glucose, and that improved her condition rapidly, no more sedation necessary.

We could collect her, which we did.

A dog can have epileptic seizures just once in it's life, to never have them again. So they wait to see if it ever happens again, and only then investigate, as the procedures are invasive. They want fluid from the spine, etc. Other causes were quickly mentioned, like low glucose can be a pancreas problem. A quick fix for low glucose is to put some honey on her gums, with your finger. That passes quickly into the blood.

Early May she stumbled and fell into the water bowl.  Hmm. And we saw more and worse stumbling.  A few weeks without major trouble, then end of May another seizure.  Honey on her gums did the trick. But... not good, this.  Meanwhile an enormously increased appetite! June 6 Coco needed vaccinations, and we took Estrella along for blood sampling.

June 8 the results were in: very probably an “insulinoma", a malignant growth in the pancreas, excreting excessive insulin, causing glucose in the blood to be extremely low. The moment that is noticeable it’s already too late. Prognosis is extremely bleak, even with treatment (an operation).

We had an appointment for an ultrasound for the morning of June 9, but by the evening of June 8 it was clear there was no future, she had more seizures that we could not stop. Not with honey, nor with valium. How to get her through the night? We really did not know. By midnight we called the vet's alarm number, she passed away at the vet's, June 9, 00:45.

Wrapped her in blankets and took her home for burial. We are so very sad.

We don't know her age, we think 8-9-10? Not young, but not old either. 4 years in that cage nearby, 1 and 3/4 years with us. Her attention seeking never ended, until now. Farewell dear Estrella, you were very welcome to stay with us for years and years more.

Our reasoning for letting her go was that if an insulinoma was indeed visible in the ultrasound it was probably too late to operate, and if not, what else? And if yes, when could an operation be arranged? The success of seeing an insulinoma on ultrasound is low, too, max 40%. Also, the first signs we saw a year ago, which is a long time for this disease, where metastatis is more common than not. A max survival time of two years post op is a bleak future. And how much of those two remaining years are with a good quality of life? As said, we did not see how we would get her through the night before the scan. Goodbye dear strange funny lovely Estrella.

Crying again.

But life goes on, there are now 6 left to care for.

May 6 2023

May 6 2023

April 30 2022

May 31 2022

May 31 2022

May 6 2023, see her left eye is half blue?

May 6 2023

July 2 2022

October 31 2021, climbing the fig

December 4 2021, escaping over the back gate

Rain, again

1. Rain, again. 

After an extremely dry winter and spring. Hm.

And they were right.

2. Roof

Despite all the work on the roof, we still have leaks. Well, that is no surprise really, the rain was extreme, and the roof is not yet finished. Only the ends of the roof tiles are now mortared, the sides still need their Lanko treatment.

Still, a little disappointing. Not much water, just a few drops, but irritating all the same, as the sound of a drop of water on a wooden floor is like a smack on the head, at night, when you are sleeping. And there were about 15 locations with a small leak.

3. Road

The canals work. But, with lots of water coming from the field at the back, the gravel fills especially the middle canal, and it ceases to function, and the water simply flows over.  

The big flow of water stems from the field behind us, right behind that white electricity pylon. It then flows onto our road, filling up the canal you can see below. After that the water simply flows over, damaging the road, again. The solution will be to block that flow of water. There already is a canal dug there, by us, but the water flows too quickly to be contained. It needs a row of those concrete blocks to contain it. We will order a pallet of those and lay them in a row, right next to our road.

So, here we go again: repairs. 

Luckily our neighbour makes roads, he made this one, and he came with a machine the afternoon of the day after. No need to add extra sand or gravel, there still was enough material. That machine is great! They use it in one direction to collect material, then reverse it to spread it. Clever.

The concrete of the canal was broken by the machine.  They said that is was because the machine is really heavy, but engineer Jansen thinks they simply hooked the concrete.  we re-inserted the bits, with some wire mesh in between, and a rather liquid mix of cement and sand to fill the gaps.

We put a reflector triangle at the entrance gate, to keep people out while the road was unusable. That did not stop the damn arrogant kutneighbours down the road. They arrived in their car, got out, put the triangle and block of stone to the side, went back in their car, continued, saw they could not continue, got out and walked. 

4. Water tunnel

Water in front of the garage, again. This time engineer Jansen noticed that there is a plastic tube in the wall that expels water from the tunnel. At midnight he thought of this, and got out of bed: the water is now caught in this contraption, the grey plastic pipes and white blocks, and directed to the irrigation channel, away from the garage:

This pipe in the wall was always there, but in the past expelled its water into the irrigation channel that we severed and redirected to build the ramp to access the garage.  Never noticed it before!

The ad hoc construction is now permanent:

The stones around the white plastic pipe were rather loose, took them out, re-inserted them with some sand:lime:cement:water 2:1:1:1 mixture. 

5. Septic overflow (no pictures)

Well, last time we had very substantial rain we noticed a slow rising of the water in the downstairs loo. We attributed that to the soil becoming saturated with water, and thus raising the water level in the main septic tank, resulting in that rising water level in the downstairs loo. 

But, engineer Jansen was never really satisfied with that reasoning, noticing that the water canal behind our house was full of water. The overflow of our septic system exits into that canal via a buried pipe. But, if the canal is full of water the situation might be reversed, and the overflow might become an inflow.

So, when we noticed the water level rising again, but now very quickly after the onset of the rain the theory of waterlogged soil was abandoned, and the overflow pipe became the suspect again. While rain was gushing we removed the septic's lid, and yes, there was the water flowing in.  Used a bit of sponge in a plastic bag to block it, as a temporary measure.

The previous time we prevented trouble using our Gardena pump to pump out water, and lower the water level. That did not work this time, as there was some dirt in the pump, and it refused to work. Used a siphon as an alternative. Still, a bit of smelly water ended up on our kitchen floor. The engineers had a busy evening. 

(In Waar is de kak? // Where is the poo? you can read more juicy story on the septic tank(s). ) 

6. Gravel

The gravel in the orchard was inundated too. We are extremely lucky and happy that the water flowing actually was clean, and left no muddy residue. So, no tiresome cleanup there!