Boy's in the hospital

[Miztiki]

Boy's in the hospital and will probably stay there through the holiday weekend.

 

They're not sure what is wrong with him. He has severe pain in his neck somewhere and they'll have him on morphine. Hopefully that will make him more comfortable. He did an awful lot of crying today.

 

They said I can come visit any time I want, so I might go check on him in the wee hours of the morning when things have slowed down there and I can talk to the vet at length.

 

I had them draw blood to check those ALT's (liver enzymes) and it's at 2988 (normal 10-100).

 

For anyone who knows about blood results and is curious, the following were abnormal or at the high/low end of normal:

 

WBC 7.1 (6.0-16.9) low-normal

Lymph/Mono 0.6 (1.1-6.3) low

PLT (platelet?) 193 (175-500) low-normal

ALB 3.9 (2.3-4.0) high-normal

ALKP 194 (23-212) high-normal

AMYL 341 (500-1500) low

 

This is so hard.

[Root Beer]

My thoughts and prayers are with you and Boy.

[nancy in AZ]

Oh Miz! This is terrible news--I am so sorry. You must be frantic. When Minnie had her first seizure she had similar symptoms when her spine was palpated or her chin was lifted. They gave her a shot of morphine to alleviate the pain. The vets were never able to reconcile the pain reaction with the seizure, but fortunately she did make a recovery with no long term affects. I pray that the same is true for your Boy. At least he will have relief from the pain. I'll be watching for updates and hoping for the best for you all.

[Tiga's_mom]

Oh my gosh. So sorry to hear that. I hope he's ok. Hang in there Miz, you've got lots of support here as I'm sure you know. I'll be thinking good thought for Boy. Keep us updated.

[Deneen]

I am so, so sorry to hear this. I will continue to think of you and Boy. I can only imagine what you must be going through. *hugs*

 

~Kelly

[Miztiki]

Speaking of seizures, they said he is at risk for having a seizure right now, which is one more reason they want to keep him there until the vets all open on Tuesday. That, the pain, and a potential problem with the liver.

 

I'm looking up what all of his blood results mean right now.

 

The emergency vet suspects he might have meningitis (inflammation of the covering of the brain) which I KNOW is very painful. That wouldn't explain the high ALT levels though. He might be going through an acute phase of Toxoplasmosis. He might have some hemorraging at the site of his spinal tap. Those were the three things she thought might be going on, none of which sound very damn good to me! I wish I had never brought him in for the MRI or spinal tap. He was 100% fine and perfectly normal before that. Maybe he'd be fine if we had skipped having those things done. God this sucks.

[Lunar]

Oh Miz this must be so hard for you. *hugs* Please get well soon, Boy.

[abbies_mumma]

Oh poor poor Boy. I hope he gets better or at least you find the source of the pain.

[Jen C]

I am so sorry to hear this news... Sending healing thoughts and prayers your way. Keep your head up - hopefully they will figure it all out soon and Boy will be feeling well again.

[sea4th]

Hopefully he can spend a couple of painless nights. I'm so sorry to hear this. Poor guy. Hugs to you Miz. Hopefully they'll figure it all out.

[nancy in AZ]

Miz, I'm confused. I thought the point of the spinal tap was to eliminate meningitis as a possibility. Didn't the tap come out clean?

[Allie+Tess&Kipp]

Sending good vibes your way for Boy. I hope he is okay. I'm very glad you can visit anytime.

 

I hope Fynne is holding up okay with all the confusion.

 

You take care.

 

Allie + Tess & Kipp

[Joe Anne]

((((((( )))))))

[Miztiki]

No Nancy. The point of the spinal tap was to look for any other central nervous system disorder. Meningitis is inflammation of the meninges (covering of the brain) and that is very painful. He didn't exhibit any sort of symptom like that. They were looking for a reason for his back end to go weak like it did last month, and his behavior changes.

 

The tap did come back normal, though the emergency vet tonight said that his total protein of 35 was high-normal (15-35). Not sure what that means though. I'm drinking coffee and will go back in a couple of hours when they are slowed down so that I can pick their brains and visit Boy. I sure hope he's comfortable. It broke my heart to watch him cry out in pain! He's so stoic - you know he wouldn't cry out unless he was in severe pain.

 

Fynne is being a real doll! Boy hasn't been up to playing at all since I picked him up from the vet's on Tuesday. It's funny cause I'd let them out and she'd be all ready to run and play, then see that Boy was not in the mood, so she'd just go pee and then walk beside us. Sometimes she'd go up to him and kiss him too. I think I will take her somewhere this weekend and spend some private time with her. Maybe we will go to the park if it doesn't rain.

[Beth G]

Poor boy. I will say a prayer for him. ~Hugs

[bc friend]

Hopefully Boy is being kept comfortable on pain meds and a diagnosis/treatment will be developed soon. Take care of yourself as well and don't beat yourself up so much about the MRI and tap - you were trying to take care of him and you don't know that the tests had anything to do with his current problem - they may have just caused enough stress to reveal an underlying condition.

[Dixie_Girl]

Miz, this is such distressing news. I know how you are feeling, and I know it realy sucks. Just know that we are here and praying/hoping for recovery for dear Boy. Draw strength where you can, hope where you can find it, and love and caring here. You are a great dog owner, and anything you did was out of love and concern. Boy might not understand all that is going on with him, but he does understand how much you love him. Do not doubt that.

 

Wish I could, as everyone here does, do more to help you and Boy. My prayers for Boy's recovery, and to you for strength to get through this.

[Tassie]

What the others have said. (((((Hugs))))) and good thoughts coming your way from Oz.

[bobh]

sorry about boy, Do the vets excplain what the results mean and what the causes can be ?

If you have not checked for for tic diseases i would my freinds dog just whent threw this . she had Ehrlichia eq. the symptoms sound just like her dogs.

bobh

[Claire Owen]

Oh Miz, this is horrible. I really hope they can at least come up with an explanation soon so they know what to treat him for. I cant imagine what your going through right now. I'll be thinking of you all...

[juliepoudrier]

Miz,

Have you read my replies to your other posts? Are you taking a list of questions to the vet so you can get definitive answers? Looking up what individual blood results mean might not give you the full story--your vet can look at the combination of results and tell things the individual results by themselves may not tell.

 

Did you ask about the use of steroids in a dog with toxoplasmosis and tick disease? Did you ask if steroids can affect any treatment for meningitis?

 

J.

[Kyrasmom]

I'm often rendered speechless before the pain of our pups but will keep good thoughts for the both of you throughout this weekend.

 

Sometimes these very dramatic occurances heal in a much much simpler way then we can possibly dream and I pray that this will be the case for Boy.

 

Maria

[AK dog doc]

I'm sorry Boy is undergoing yet another twist in his convoluted medical path and I'm sure you're very stressed right now... however, unless I'm miremembering something, Boy WASN'T perfectly fine and 100% normal before the spinal tap and MRI. Surely you would not have had those procedures done if he was not in need of them. Surely your vets would not have performed them if they didn't see a reason for it on a medical basis. I know it's tempting in such a situation to go "I should never have done X" - and I will point out that it's impossible to know beforehand what the test will tell you, because if you knew, you wouldn't be running the test - but I don't think you need to further stress yourself out by second-guessing your choice to have those procedures. It won't help Boy (what's done is done, and you just have to start from where you are right now), and it won't help you (surely you have enough stress right now withuot beating yourself up about it - even if there was reason to beat yourself up about it, which there is not.) Besides, getting a "no" is still useful information. Now they can say, okay, we've ruled disease X out, so we no longer have to consider it and the list of possibles is shorter.

 

Meanwhile, I'd be curious to hear your reply to Julie's questions.... unfortunately, the high ALT doesn't describe the PROCESS going on, it just localizes one area of current activity for you. There are many possibilities for why you might have an elevated liver enzyme, and it's useful to know there's something going on there (possibly even a medication response, though the pattern is not classic for that). However, Julie has some specific ideas for questions for your vets which might help narrow down or rule in or out certain diseases. And she's right that just knowing there's an elevated liver enzyme is useful, but can't be interpreted all by itself... you have to look at the dog as a whole, since the liver isn't sitting there all on its lonsome, but is part of an integrated system with many complex interactions. This is why medicine is complicated. Nothing exists in a box. It's all part of a very complicated interplay, and to make it more interesting, every species is different, and every animal WITHIN a species is different. At least it never gets dull (although I'm sure there are certainly times when we could all USE a little dull boring routine where everything goes as expected, ho-hum.)

 

Anyway, as several people have suggested, the tick panels and so on are avenues of interest, and I'll be curious to see what your vets say about that.

 

I very much hope Boy is out of pain and gets well quickly.

[Miztiki]

Yes I have Julie. Boy *doesn't* have any TBD's. He's been tested on two seperate occasions and is negative, which I've mentioned in many of my posts.

 

He wasn't on steroids until 5am Friday, so that doesn't explain excessive drinking/peeing on Tuesday & Wednesday, he stopped taking the Doxy the day we learned of the Bartonella results since Doxy won't help that.

 

I read your link about Bartonella too, and it seems that it is very similar to Toxoplasmosis. Since there is very little literature about Bart in regards to dogs, and since we don't know if he only had past exposure or a current infection too, giving him the Azithromycin is about all that can be done for that right now.

 

The emergency vet thinks he should continue to take the short course of steroids, despite any risks.

 

I can't get a hold of my new vet. They are closed until Tuesday. I can't get a hold of the neuro from TAMU. He's in Colorado on a personal emergency. I never got a response from the vet who did the MRI and spinal tap and why should he? His work is done.

 

So I did all I can do which is take him to the emergency clinic, which was very busy with other patients and as they said, their job is to stabalize the patient until they can be seen by their regular vet. They are not specialists. They are not presented with a case like Boy's every day.

 

I can't take my "list of questions" to anyone until Tuesday so in the meantime I'm throwing thoughts and info out here in case someone knows something. If that bothers you then I'm sorry!

[Allie Oop]

Miz, I'm so sorry that Boy continues to struggle. I'm sure the stress and worry is terrible.

 

If it were Allie in Boy's situation, I know that I would be frantic. I regard Allie as a family member and treat her as such (despite the fact that my husband frequently reminds me that she is my dog, not my child. ) -- I suspect you feel the same way.

 

When my son was a baby he was very, very ill and I spent many sleepless hours worrying about what was going on and frantically searching the internet for information and clues. I think that being informed is an excellent idea, but sometimes all that information does is add to the stress level because it doesn't always lead to definite answers and sometimes even leads to wrong ones. I also found that just because one person's experience led to one conclusion, another person's might not end up the same way.

 

If you feel that Boy is resting relatively comfortably and is receiving good medical care, I would try to relax (as if, right ). Tuesday seems like eternity, I'm sure. The folks on this Board are very concerned for you and poor Boy, but despite any advice we may offer, only the professionals you are dealing with can make any real diagnosis.

 

I hope that all goes well for your family and we will be thinking about you.

 

Regards,