Sunday, April 2/2017 - Wednesday, April 12/2017

New winch bumper and winch

Another busy week is upon us.  Lorne and Marilyn left for home and we were now concentrating on getting the camper packed and getting all the odds and ends cleaned up and start our journey home.
Booko continues to cough and hack and hasn't really eaten anything for a few days.  He has lost weight and I tried to get him in to see our usual vet but that was definitely not happening.  John is quite convinced that I am the cause of his "issues" because of our "shower" incident and my own guilt is wearing on me.  Kay suggested trying another vet and I was able to get him in without having to jump through hoops.  As it turns out, the vet thinks he has Valley Fever.  Something very common here in Arizona.  She drew some blood work and took a chest film.  The chest film showed a huge enlarge lymph node sitting at the base of his trachea and that is what she believes is causing all the coughing and hacking.  Needless to say, I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that our "shower" incident had nothing to do with his issues.  As it turned out, Booko's blood work did not support the Valley Fever diagnosis but the vet thinks that he is not being "typical" as some dogs show negative while still having the fungus.  Because he wasn't really improving, she decided to treat him with some antibiotics and some antifungal drugs.  Of course these antifungal drugs had to be titrated to his weight, Kay and I had to make a quick trip into the dog pharmacy in Surprise for him.  All in all, Booko is living up to his name as this latest cost was considerable!!  Booko Bucks!!  Before we left for home, he was started on his meds and after a few days, he was doing much better and had actually started to eat again.  Time will tell as to whether or not his followup chest film shows that the lymph node has actually decreased in size.  If it has, then he will be treated for Valley Fever for a year.  If it hasn't then we will have to investigate the issue further.   More bucks to spend!!
The rest of the following weeks were busy with packing, getting the oil changed in the truck and setting the trailer up for the summer.  With all that being done, we were soon ready for the trip home.  Kay was packed and Henrietta was loaded.  We will be doing some quadding on the way home and Kay has decided to come along.  She is not due back at work till the end of the month.

The cats were busy this week catching lizards and bringing
them into the house to show Kay!!

Beautiful color on the one victim

The last few days of enjoying the javalina

We even got to see the little babies a few times before we left.
There has been no sign of Thelma for over a week so I chose
to believe that she has finally moved on.

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All in all, it was a busy week and a half and I was truly glad to see if finally come to an end.  Tomorrow we are headed North and that is a good thing!!