Time to Peak Your Interest
An oak tree has eggcorns right?
It’s a Doggy Dog World
A lot happened in January. In December as I wrote the last newsletter, the future looked pretty dire. The good news is that things broke our way a little bit.
While Athena seemed to be holding steady on the clavamox, that wasn’t the case for her sister. We made the decision to stop Tali’s antibiotics at the start of the month in preparation for running a full culture. Our vet wanted her system to be as clear as possible before we drew the sample to send to IDEX, the lab. The hope too was that stopping the antibiotics would help her feel less nauseous so she would eat.
By that point, she had not had a full meal without prodding, cajoling, and begging in weeks. And they weren’t well-rounded meals, she was only eating freshly cooked chicken breast. And I do mean freshly cooked; if it was in the fridge overnight, she’d refuse it in the morning.
The day after we decided to stop the antibiotics we got a new appetite stimulant for her. So we dosed her with that. We also bought a fancy new crunch dried food for her to try. And she finally ate a full meal. And then another, and one after that. She ate a week’s worth of meals without a problem, and we never had to give her any more anti-nausea meds or another dose of the stimulant. After a week the vet took their sample and sent it off.
She got in another week of food without complaint while we waited for results, which was a relief. Unfortunately it took IDEX longer that we expected, so we were waiting on tenterhooks for an answer.
As I said last newsletter, the $400 dollar culture was basically a hail-mary play. They confirmed that the bacteria was MRSP, Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Pseudintermedius, as we expected. They tested over two dozen different antibiotics and only three showed any effectiveness against the strain of MRSP.
The first was ridiculously expensive, so that is right out. The second was moderately expensive, but needs to be injected by the vet every 8 hours for weeks. And also needs IV fluids and subcutaneous fluids, because it pretty actively destroys the kidneys. She’d need a kidney level check daily. So also ridiculously expensive, plus horrendously traumatizing to Tali. So no.
That leaves rifampin, which is an antibiotic that was an option for Athena during her bout of cancer earlier this year. We didn’t choose it back then because it has an 80% of causing liver failure, and the other option was safe. That safe option came back as ineffective, however. The other problem is that the only way the vet could order the rifampin was to compound it, which would cost almost $250 a week. For hopefully six weeks.
Our vet was able to get clarification from the microbiologists at IDEX about the liver damage. The “good” news there is that it’s not actually an 80% chance of liver failure, but rather an 80% chance of liver damage. And since the liver is a regenerative organ, that damage is potentially reversible. We set up a game plan to take a baseline of her liver levels, and then a weekly test to keep an eye on the damage. Once it hits 2-3 times any of her baseline levels, we stop.
I spent a day calling around to various pharmacies. Rifampin is primarily a human antibiotic, so our vet was hoping we could find a pharmacy that had the required dose in stock and at a decent price. Thanks to GoodRX, we were able to get the pills ordered from CVS… for $45 total. For the entire six week course. So in the best case we won’t have to worry about getting it restocked.
Her first follow-up to check liver levels is Thursday, February 5th. We want to get as many weeks of treatment into her as possible. She’s only been on it for a couple of days so far, and it seems it may be making her a bit nauseous.
So far the infection doesn’t seem to be spreading as rapaciously as it did two months ago. We don’t know if it was the cold snap (followed by 8 inches of snow!) that hit us this month, or the stringent cleaning of her paws, or just increasingly rare good luck that slowed it down. At the least, it has given Tali a fighting chance. It’s pretty clear at this point that Tali’s compromised immune system is a major player in this situation.
If the rifampin kills off this current infection and Tali recovers, the next step is really going to be focusing on that immune system. For her the pattern seems to be an allergic response that weakens her immune system, and then MRSP being the opportunistic little shit that it is spreads. Thus the next steps would be to figure out what she’s allergic to, and what we can do to minimize those reactions.
The recommendation is a full skin allergy test. It’s basically the same thing humans go through, where they shave a large portion of skin and prick dozens of times with allergens to see what happens. Unlike a human, however, for dogs they have to be fully sedated and then held at least a full day or overnight for monitoring. This is super expensive at just over $3,000.
Athena is still hanging in there, though her infection is still present. Her immune system is fighting it off though, and we definitely need to shave her again. Her coat holds in moisture and allows the MRSP to grow, and shaving it seems to slow it enough for her to fight. Satsuki seems to have recovered from her UTI, thankfully.
We are putting together a GoFundMe to raise money to pay for the allergy testing, and to cover the liver testing as well. We’ll post it on our socials, and I’ll probably post it as a note here too. At this point we are really, really desperate for a break.
Looking for an Escape Goat
I needed something else to focus on last month. So I finished writing the last chapter of the sequel sent it off to my Beta readers. It really was the last chapter; it actually worked pretty perfectly as an epilogue. I am loosely looking at a mid to late summer launch. I gave my readers two to three months for a turnaround, though I’m absolutely willing to push that if they need more time.
For me, the Beta process is pretty straightforward; I ask my friends for volunteers, and then send them a copy of the novel with accompanying questions. Most questions I developed on my own, though this time I added a list of questions Mary Robinette Kowal asks her readers. I’m very curious to see if the answers differ.
I have eight readers this time around, and they are fantastic people. I encourage them to comment and recommend edits as much as they can. Getting the viewpoints of other people is absolutely crucial to making a novel better.
Finally on the book front, I settled on a title: Pallas Chase. The next step for me is to create the front and back matter for the books, and start working on a cover. I also need to decide on a name for the trilogy as a whole! Fifteen Systems is the universe, but it’s not a fit for the series.
In Other Worlds, SPSFC5
Our first cuts will happen halfway through February, and it has been fascinating reading the entries so far. I don’t personally have a clear favorite yet, but I have a few that are solid contenders. I still have two more books I want to finish before the cuts, but we’ve guaranteed each book in our bracket has had multiple judges reading them.
If you haven’t checked them out yet, please visit my fellow judges at the links below!
R.E. Holding
Jimiflan
Jimi’s Wordpress
Jimi’s BlueSky
Ida
Champ
Goals Update:
Honestly this year has been rougher than I wanted so far. I want to release Pallas Chase before the end of 2026.
Thank you so much for following and reading! Don’t forget to subscribe, like and comment. Let me know what you want to see more of from this newsletter! Engagement is crucial. I look forward to posting throughout the rest of 2026!