I haven’t written anything lately because this is, by far, the hardest post i ever made.

But ”To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die“. And i owe this to him.

Styx passed away on the 12th of October 2008.

After a very hard week for everyone (specially to him, obviously), i had to see dreadful things. He lost weight, he had to be hand-fed, he was sad.

Everytime anyone touched it, it was to do something he wasn’t confortable with, so he started reacting badly to our touch. But i think he knows we loved him, we meant him no harm.

It was just hard. And painful. He had to take IVs, and i completely know how those hurt.

After i woke up on the 12th, he spent a great deal of time (considering he never did that before) just lying, at my feet.

I’m pretty sure he knew of what was going to happen next.

His last minutes reached a suffering that i never wanted to see. He could not walk straight, and he was in pain.

I will forever keep those moments in my mind. As painful as they are, i do not think that forgetting them would be fair to who suffered.

It will be a constant reminder of how frelled up life and death are. A reminder of volatility.

The pain is still very present, and i’m finding words hard to type. I’ll just leave some pictures of his last days. The pictures might not be good, but they are memories to be respected.

Esta noite atravessava uma floresta a sonhar

Ela estava cheia de horror. Seguindo a cartilha

Os olhos vazios, que nenhum olhar compreende

Os bichos erguiam-se entre árvore e árvore

Esculpidos em pedra pelo gelo. Da linha de abetos,

Ao meu encontro, através da neve

Vinha estalando, isto um sonho ou são os meus olhos que a vêem,

Uma criança de armadura, coira a e viseira

A lança no braço. Cuja ponta faísca

No negro dos abetos, que bebe o sol

O último vestígio do dia - uma seta de ouro

Atrás da floresta do sonho, que me faz sinal de morrer

E num piscar de olho, entre choque e dor,

O meu rosto olhou-me: a criança era eu.

It’s bad enough my weeks only have 4 normal days, as the others are mostly endured amidst headaches and groans.

But, for frell’s sake, leave the kid alone.

He went to the vet 2 days ago, because he wasn’t eating properly. 1/6 of what he normally eats per day.

After a blood check, came the bad news: he has renal insufficiency . A serious one.

His BIL was 6.71and the normal is 0.2-0.7.

His UREA was 277 and the normal is < 65.

His CREAtinine was > 10.0 and the average is 1.8.

Yikes.

He immediately took a 200ml IV (dammit, I do a lot of those, now him, too? ) and was allowed to be brought home to sleep, but this IV treatment will last for some days.

Day 2 [ 7 OCt 2008 ]: 

He stayed in the vet for around 10 hours taking an IV drop.

He was a bit better by the start of the day:

His CREAtinine was down to 9.06 and his UREA was down to 221. Still very far from normal, but he’s recovering.

Hopefully, tomorrow it will be even better. I’m crossing my fingers for you, kid.

Here are some sad pics of him getting the IV and licking his band-aid.

The new pills are NOT the nice surprise, but i guess these aren’t too bad (except for the outrageous pricetag on them):

As for the nice surprise: a couple of weeks ago, i filled out a form on the http://myelinrepair.org/ MS site to request some free info. 

Trivial. 

But.. i wasn’t expecting this: a nicely packaged DVD, with a very nice layout. Seems some people do give attention to us MSers.

A protein that helps keep immune cells quiet — and has been suspected of being tied to multiple sclerosis — is more abundant in the spinal fluid of people with MS than those without the disease, a new report says.

The finding, by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, may help give scientists new drug therapies to prevent and treat MS, which is caused by misdirected immune attacks on the protective lining that coats nerve cell branches.

The extra protein, TREM-2, was found floating freely in spinal fluid. It previously had only been seen on the surface of immune cells.

“This is only speculation for now, but these ‘free agent’ copies of TREM-2 could be making it harder for the TREM-2 that is attached to immune cells to keep the cells’ aggressiveness under control,” study lead author Dr. Laura Piccio, a postdoctorate fellow, said in a university news release.

TREM-2 is a receptor protein, although scientists don’t yet know what molecule attaches to it and activates it. The research team suspects the TREM-2 in the spinal fluid could be binding to that unknown molecule, slashing the chances that it has to bind to and activate TREM-2 attached to immune cells.

The findings were published in the journal Brain.

Previous research has shown that when activated, TREM-2 can help reduce immune inflammation and promote phagocytosis, a process that lets cells consume things. Researchers think this allows macrophage, an immune cell that performs a variety of housekeeping functions, to consume dying nerve cells and shut down inflammatory processes.

“The main thing we knew about MS and the function of TREM-2 before this study was that blocking TREM-2 in a mouse model of MS made their conditions worse,” study senior author Dr. Anne Cross, head of the school’s neuroimmunology section, said in the news release.

SOURCE: Washington University School of Medicine

Next-day havoc again. I still can not find a pattern on the side effects (or i would try to avoid them, of course)….