Car Troubles

Over the weekend on the way to meet Grandpa for dinner in Taipei, we were hit on the highway by an unknown object.  It was pretty dark (around 7pm) and it came from the side, so to this time we still don't know what hit us.  Luckily we're ok, but our new car was dented pretty badly headlights + side panel+ bumper.   Tyler was sleeping so he didn't really experience it.  For insurance purposes, we went to the police station to file a report which took forever.  It was almost 2am by the time we stepped into the house.  Add this to my car batteries dying, and towed to the pound earlier last week, this is car incident #3.  Like my friend Sarah advised, it's time to go "bai bai" at the temple to try to ward off any more bad luck.

Election Day at the Beach

It was a beautiful day for the beach.  And to help us remember this momentous election day, we wrote the name of the new U.S. president in the sand.
Here's Karen and I working on our masterpiece.

Good Prognosis for Byrdie

Today we drove to the Taipei University Veterinary Hospital to get Byrdie checked out.  We had an appointment to see their Central Nervous System specialist, but luck would have it the doctor was in a meeting and they couldn't contact me since they had our old phone number in their records.  Anyhow, we saw a generalist which I wasn't too happy about, but what can you do... we've already made the 1 hour trip from Hsinchu.  

After checking her over, the Vet said that given how she is recovering from the stroke it's definitely not due to a tumor, but a blockage of some sort.  And recurrence is unlikely in the near term.  We ran some tests to rule out certain causes, so I do feel better having taken her to Taipei.  Byrdie is also a lot more energetic compared to the weekend, and is wagging her tail again.  She's not 100% yet, but she's getting better.

Byrdie isn't feeling well...

I noticed two days ago that Byrdie was definitely not herself.  Her tail was down, and she was eating out of one side of her food bowl.  She was also favoring one side, her left side, which means she always turned left, sometimes circling an area.  She also seemed disoriented, not wagging her tail or coming when her name was called.  Yesterday, I took her to the Vet and he said that these were symptoms having to do with the nervous system.  Her symptoms aren't so bad, he said.  Besides prescribing some vitamin B and steroids for if the symptoms got worse, there wasn't specifically anything he could do.  He recommended going to Taipei to run some tests.

Basically, I think Byrdie had a stroke and I suspect she can't see out of her right eye. It's hard to say what the cause was until we run the tests when I take her next week.  It could be anything from heart disease, fat deposits, to old age. Based on internet reading, dogs recover from strokes faster than humans.  And I'm hopeful that since her symptoms aren't so bad, that she still can walk around on her own, that she'll recover soon.