Good Thoughts Needed

[Saffron]

We have an appointment at Tufts tomorrow to try to get to the bottom of what is going on with my Catwalk, and Dr Couto is reviewing all her records this afternoon also. It doesn't look too good.

 

Our regular vet has already warned me that it still could be the pancreatitis we were treating but wasn't getting better, some auto-immune disease attacking her organs or, of course, cancer, or something else. We could use some healing thoughts here.

 

I haven't posted about this before, because it *seemed* minor at first, and I expected nearly everyone to be having a wonderful time at Dewey anyway. Some may remember me from my posts under my old screen name -- 2whitegreys. I'm Gillian in Massachussets with Catwalk, Pilgrim and Murphy P, usually posting about suspicious lumps and Therapy Dog activities.

 

I'll post an update here tomorrow pm, but I'm not sure how often I'll be able to get back to this thread before then. I've stuck a brief description I wrote out of what has been going on below in case anyone finds it helpful. I'm a wreck, and writing it out helped stop me bawling my eyes out. Well temporarily, at least.

 

Many thanks in advance,

 

Gillian.

 

Two weeks ago -- Catwalk apparently a happy healthy 7 year old greyhound. October 4th, had what seemed like a minor tummy upset (vomited twice and some minor diarrhea), went off food temporarily, home cooked chicken and rice the next day, no big deal. Eating normal food Monday, a bit picky but eating. But rapid (really rapid) weight loss. About 8lbs melting off in 4-5 days.

 

Last Wednesday -- our vet ran all the usual blood/urine tests including the specific pancreatitis screen. FYI, my vets office is fantastic and very knowledgable about greyhounds. Diagnosis -- mild pancreatitis of unknown cause. She is not high risk, and had not got into anything greasy, is on decent food, is not obese, etc, but that is what it looked like. So we treat for pancreatitis. Friday she vomited again twice and has had sub Q fluids every day since to stop her from dehydrating, even though the vomiting stopped.

 

Today -- Running the blood and urine tests again yesterday shows she is getting worse not better, thus the consultations. I don't have the numbers in front of me yet, but let's just say that the results are dramatically worse than last week. Looks like her liver and kidneys are now compromised too.

 

 

 

[Guest greytmonty]

We have an appointment at Tufts tomorrow to try to get to the bottom of what is going on with my Catwalk, and Dr Couto is reviewing all her records this afternoon also. It doesn't look too good.

 

Our regular vet has already warned me that it still could be the pancreatitis we were treating but wasn't getting better, some auto-immune disease attacking her organs or, of course, cancer, or something else. We could use some healing thoughts here.

 

I haven't posted about this before, because it *seemed* minor at first, and I expected nearly everyone to be having a wonderful time at Dewey anyway. Some may remember me from my posts under my old screen name -- 2whitegreys. I'm Gillian in Massachussets with Catwalk, Pilgrim and Murphy P, usually posting about suspicious lumps and Therapy Dog activities.

 

I'll post an update here tomorrow pm, but I'm not sure how often I'll be able to get back to this thread before then. I've stuck a brief description I wrote out of what has been going on below in case anyone finds it helpful. I'm a wreck, and writing it out helped stop me bawling my eyes out. Well temporarily, at least.

 

Many thanks in advance,

 

Gillian.

 

Two weeks ago -- Catwalk apparently a happy healthy 7 year old greyhound. October 4th, had what seemed like a minor tummy upset (vomited twice and some minor diarrhea), went off food temporarily, home cooked chicken and rice the next day, no big deal. Eating normal food Monday, a bit picky but eating. But rapid (really rapid) weight loss. About 8lbs melting off in 4-5 days.

 

Last Wednesday -- our vet ran all the usual blood/urine tests including the specific pancreatitis screen. FYI, my vets office is fantastic and very knowledgable about greyhounds. Diagnosis -- mild pancreatitis of unknown cause. She is not high risk, and had not got into anything greasy, is on decent food, is not obese, etc, but that is what it looked like. So we treat for pancreatitis. Friday she vomited again twice and has had sub Q fluids every day since to stop her from dehydrating, even though the vomiting stopped.

 

Today -- Running the blood and urine tests again yesterday shows she is getting worse not better, thus the consultations. I don't have the numbers in front of me yet, but let's just say that the results are dramatically worse than last week. Looks like her liver and kidneys are now compromised too.

OMG I am so sorry to hear this. We are LITERALLY in the middle of the same thing with Monty. I have a thread running. I hope your girl gets better soon.....

[Burpdog]

Sending lots of prayers!

[Guest gottaluvgreysindy]

Sending prayers for you and your baby. Hopefully you get answers and get things going in the right direction.

[CaliforniaGreys]

Lots of prayers and good thoughts coming your way

[grey14me]

are they giving her anything besides subQ fluids? pepcid? antibiotic? was she on any medication before this started?

 

sending prayers :hope

[Guest greyhound1]

Sending prayers!

[Guest Greyglo]

Adding my prayers for your Catwalk from here. Best wishes at Tufts tomorrow.

[patricia]

Sending my prayers and white light.

[phall]

Gillian,

 

I'm so sorry for what you and Catwalk are going through. Please let me know how things go at Tufts for Catwalk. I'll be thinking of you and hoping and hoping that Catwalk gets better soon.

 

Pat Hall

(I'm close to you here in Ayer, so if there's anything I can do to help please let me know.

[Saffron]

Thanks all, for all your support. I apologise for not doing individual responses, but I'm going to have to be quick because I need to give Catwalk some serious loving. I'm looking at a horribly sick skeletal dog here. So fast. From healthy to really sick in <10 days.

 

I will have to check out Monty's thread, and my best wishes for him, if my response gets lost in the shuffle there.

 

The horrid thing with this is that the onset was so *nothing much.* She might have lost a couple off lbs over the summer, but we all are more active and drop a few pounds over the summer.

 

We've all had a dog gak up stuff sometimes haven't we? We've all had the odd soft poop? She had no explosive diarrhea or vomiting. Just a little upset tummy, and a bit off her food. I'm a person who rushes to the vet when in doubt. I did that when she started melting weight off in 4 days after a *minor8 tummy upset.

 

are they giving her anything besides subQ fluids? pepcid? antibiotic? was she on any medication before this started?

 

sending prayers :hope

 

Many thanks for the heartfelt prayers, but nope, nope and nope.

 

Catwalk was the picture of health. On no meds. She had one day of diarrhea on October 4, but other than that her poop has been normal.

 

She has vomited maybe 5-6 times total over 10 days. With pancreatitis (and she was not a typical presentation but that was what the bloodwork said) the standard treatment is fasting to rest the digestive tract and then gentle reintroduction of low fat food.

 

Since October 8, on one day she has been ravenously hungry, the next refusing food. Her poops have been normal since the 4th.

I've been hand feeding tiny amounts of low fat food hourly to lessen the chance of vomiting.

 

Hard to do when your hound is shrinking before your eyes.

 

I'm anticipating the worst here, but I know Catwalk's regular vets have gone above and beyond for her. They came in over the holiday w/e just to give her fluids and spare us the E-vet costs. Sometimes bad things happen to good dogs, conscientious owners and excellent vets.

 

Please continue positive thoughts for my beloved Catwalk. She is so very sick.

 

Thanks again,

 

Gillian

 

 

[MandysMom]

Sending prayers for your sweet Catwalk.

[Guest SoulsMom]

Sending good thoughts to you and your girl. Have any ultrasounds been done to take a look at what might be going on in there? I'm a big believer in getting an ultrasound done sooner, rather than later, after what recently happened to my bosses dog. He'd had daily vomiting and a few bouts of the Big D. After weeks of this, he vomited five times in one night. When the blood tests showed that his liver was failing, he was rushed to Tufts for an ultrasound. It showed a ruptured gall bladder. Riley almost died, and spent a week in the hospital after his surgery because the toxins caused him to develop pneumonia.

 

I hope Tufts can get to the bottom of this for you.

[Saffron]

Again, many thanks all. Another combined response to GT

 

Pat, I'll PM you in a moment, but thanks so much for your offer of help. I think we were posting simultaneously. I'm sure you agree that our mutual vets are wonderful.

 

No, Soulsmom, no ultrasound yet. Almost certainly tomorrow at Tufts.

 

Thanks to all,

 

Gillian

 

 

[Guest GreytMuse]

Good luck tomorrow, my thoughts and prayers will be with you for some answers and some ideas to help Catwalk get better quickly.

[Remolacha]

hoping for the best tomorrow

[Guest argolola]

My prayers are with you all.

[4greyhounds]

Sending lots of prayers....

[HopeForHounds]

Gillian, you and Catwalk have my prayers. I am relieved that you have the best vets in your corner. Hang in there.

[KingsMom]

Sending many good thoughts and prayers that your girl will recover quickly!

[Guest poopsie1]

Oh Gillian, I'm just now reading this. I am so sorry Catwalk is so sick. It was just the other day I was looking at the pics of her and Pilgrim and Stanley. She's so beautiful and I'm sitting here bawling reading your post. I'll be praying for you both today. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Love and hugs from me and Stanley.

[patricia]

Thinking of you this morning and sending more prayers.

[Saffron]

Again, thanks to all. I wish it were better news.

 

Catwalk is at Tufts over-night and possibly longer. I was not too surprised because from the look of her yesterday night and this am she just can't be an out patient any longer. She is getting worse by the day. At least Tufts can put her on a IV and manage her pain. Yep, she is now in serious pain but was gakking up the tramadol pronto. Not good, because I had to try to keep her hydrated.

 

She had chest Xrays today, clotting counts, and will have an ultrasound also tomorrow. And a slew of other aspirations (depending on the clotting count) and tests, including for Lepto. Pancreatitis, gall bladder issues, cancer, Lepto, foreign object . . . who knows right now?

 

Even though I had anticipated that she would probably need to be hospitalized, and thought I had the British stiff upper lip firmly in place, I wept all over the Tufts vet. Sweet lady.

 

She gave me a hug and told me that dogs can recover from pancreatitis, but I have a very bad feeling about this. Let us hope my instincts are wrong.

 

I'm supposed to get an update from Tufts tomorrow morning. I'll keep you posted.

 

And thank you so much for caring! It means so much!

 

Gillian.

[Guest poopsie1]

Hoping that Catwalk is doing okay.

[patricia]

Sending more prayers that all tests are negative for anything nasty.