Tobey's Day At The Vet

[Guest bigorangedog]

Yes, here I am posting in H&M again!

 

So I took Tobey in today for an xray of his wrist. He had shattered the wrist about 3 years ago and had it put back together with plates and screws. Over the weekend he tripped over a hole in the yard (that HE DUG), and we noticed on Saturday night that his wrist and foot were all swollen.

 

I thought he had slipped one of the pins in the wrist and would need it fixed. The swelling didn't go down by today, and Eyore already had a dental appt, so I brought Tobey along for some rads.

 

Well, the leg looked just fine on the rads. But as he was lying there on the xray table, Dr Meg noticed that he had some bruising on his belly. In fact, he had little bruises all over. (Hard to see b/c he is black and very furry.) She took some blood and we hung around and Tobey slept off the little bit of Ace I had given him for the drive and xrays. I know Dr Meg pretty darn well at this point, and when she got the printout of the bloodwork back, she put on her serious face. She said, "He needs a blood transfusion." What?? She wanted us to go to the referral specialty place (an hour away), and I started to say, "Well, can we do it this evening? Maybe in the morning?" And she was like, "Jen, I think you should take him right now."

 

Meg doesn't say things like that very often, so I called DH to come get Tobey and take him to the specialist while I stayed with Eyore for his dental.

 

I only just found out why Meg was so serious: His platelet count was ONE THOUSAND!!! It's supposed to be 125,000. Yeouch. While we waited for DH, Meg did a the little SNAP4 tick panel, which was negative. I started to prepare myself for worst case scenarios. I thought for sure we were looking at hemangiosarcoma or something equally unhappy.

 

Well, they did abdominal xrays (normal, but being sent to a radiologist), abdominal ultrasound (normal, except Tobey DOES NOT have a spleen!!), a bone marrow biopsy (looked normal to this vet but being sent to cytology), and a lymph node aspirate (same).

 

They can't find anything wrong with him at this point. So he and Dr Meg both think it is an immune-mediated response, to some unknown and probably never-to-be-known thing. Which of course is the best case scenario here, since in theory he should get better. They gave him Vincristine to help him get his platelets up, and we're supposed to watch him carefully and recheck in a day or two.

 

As for the wrist swelling, they think that he had a small muscle tear when he tripped over the hole, and b/c of the platelet count, it has just been bleeding since then...

 

This is one of the odder things I have seen. Anyone else have anything similar, or any thoughts to add? Tobey seems to feel just fine and in fact has been a little perkier than usual of late. (These are both vets that I really trust. Dr Meg is my go-to person for everything, and the other guy is a board-certified oncologist who used to help run the greyhound blood donor program at the U of MN.)

Thanks!!

[Charlies_Dad]

Wow! All I can say is you are lucky that you went to the vet when you did for Tobey. Very strange that his platelet count was that low. I really hope it's not serious and it just ends up being a mystery.

[OwnedBySummer]

I have to wonder... what was in the hole? Some weird fungus or strange little grub, perhaps?

[Sambuca]

No experience, but I hope Tobey is OK. Please keep us updated.

[grey14me]

Omg how scary! I sure hope he gets better quickly and it never happens again :hope

[Guest bigorangedog]

I have to wonder... what was in the hole? Some weird fungus or strange little grub, perhaps?

 

That is an excellent point. A very excellent point. Didn't think of that.

 

The people who owned the house before we bought it at the end of 2005 were master gardeners. The yard that is now our turnout yard used to be a beautiful garden (if the previous owner ever saw it now, he'd just die). We dug everything out and put down wood chips. BUT, maybe Tobey dug down far enough to unearth some previously-used poison or pesticide..... The first thing Dr Meg asked me was, "Any chance he got into some rat poison?"

[OwnedBySummer]

Some gardeners put out moth balls, to keep away skunks, I believe. Not people with dogs, of course! But perhaps... if they were dedicated gardeners... moth balls could be out there. And who knows what else?

[MP_the4pack]

Aw Jen, you just can't catch a break. I hope Tobey recovers without any incident and it doesn't pop back up.

[tbhounds]

Jenn- what was the retic count? Iff it's high it means at least his bone marrow is producing new cells-if it's low it would mean he has bone marrow disease. I would run a combs test to see if your dealing with an immune-mediated disease.