Shadow is sick...very sick

Some of you may know that Shadow has been sick for the last few weeks. Nothing too serious, or so we thought. He had diarrhea and wasn't eating well so we took him to the vet last Friday. He was put on an antibiotic and special food. He seemed to be getting better until Monday morning when he threw up. So, back to the vet we went.

The vet weighed him and he had lost almost 5 pounds since the previous Friday. They took a blood sample to run some tests & it would take a few days to get the results back. So, the vet called today (Wednesday) and the blood tests show that Shadow is starving to death. It could be many things, but apparently his body is not absorbing the nutrients it needs before it exits his body.

I asked the vet if this could be because he hasn't been eating very well over the last few days and threw everything up the morning of taking the blood. The vet said, no-this has been going on for weeks and we are just now seeing the symptoms. I asked the vet if we could just see how it goes over the next few days and he said that based on the bloodwork, he doesn't know if Shadow would even make it a few more days!!! Can you believe it?!!? I mean, the kids are with their dad until Sunday! What am I suppossed to tell them if he dies while they are gone! Plus, me and all my pregnany hormones couldn't help but crying non-stop for the poor dog!

We discussed our options with the vet (which he recommended we hospitalize the dog and get him on an IV--can you imagine how expensive THAT would be. Not to mention that we are going down to one income in less than a month and I did not budget in the pet hospital bill!!). We ended up deciding to get an xray to make sure that there was no foreign object blocking his system (there wasn't). The vet's most reasonable diagnosis (without running additional, very expensive testing) is that he has a problem absorbing protein into his system (there was some big, long name for this), which also happens to have the side-effect of diarreha--which could explain why he has had it so badly. So, Shadow is on a steroid for this (side effect of increased appetite is beneficial, too). Shadow is also on a different antibiotic as well as special food & some type of vitamin supplement we sprinkle on his food. The good news to today's vet visit was that Shadow gained one pound since his visit on Monday. I was very excited about this, until the vet said it could just be water weight. We're still focusing on the positive, though!

I'll keep you posted with his progress!