Archives for 2007

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting as much on this blog or any of my other blogs lately. I’m sure many of you have also been busier than normal this month and might not have blogged quite as much as you usually do too.

My reason for blogging less than normal doesn’t really have much to do with the holidays. It has everything to do with my new puppy and my health. My Crohn’s has been acting up more than normal in the last few weeks and I’m sure it has a lot to do with a little fur ball called Midnight that we adopted on November 23rd.

Having a young puppy to care for is similar to having an infant in the house. Both need a lot attention, frequent feedings, care and changes or well, in the case of a puppy, frequent trips outdoors for potty time. If a puppy or infant is sick double everything – including the stress and lack of sleep!

Midnight is still sick. In fact she gave me quite a scare on Wednesday.

That morning Chris had given her, her last dose of Drontal Plus – her worming meds. I guess he gave her the pills at about 8 am. Well at 12:30 pm, just as I was thinking of giving her, her second meal of the day she started hacking and ended up vomiting a little bit of her breakfast. Then I took a good look at her and noticed that her right eye looked really funny.

The inner lower lid was all swollen and it made her eye look like it was rolling back into her head. She seemed kind of out of it too.

Not knowing whether she was having some kind of reaction to the worming meds or to the food that we’d just changed her to on Monday night (Blue Buffalo large breed puppy food) or if being sick had caused some blood vessels to break in her inner eyelid and cause the swelling, I decided to call Chris at work and then called the vet.

Chris quickly came home from work. He’d been just about to take his lunch break so that worked out well and I was able to get a vet appointment within a half hour of my call.

This would be Midnight’s fourth vet appointment in only three weeks!

By the time we got to the vets office an hour had passed since she’d vomited and her eye was looking better. The vet noted that there was still some swelling. We felt a little foolish since it seemed that her eye had gone back to almost normal. The vet told us to keep an eye on it and to give her eye drops if the redness and swelling continued after a day or two. She’d already been treated for an infection in her left eye so we had eye ointment at home.

While we were there I told the vet that she’d been scratching her right ear an awful lot so he took a look and her ear drum was reddened so we went home with medication for her ear. All in all it was our cheapest vet appointment at only about $40.

I think they are beginning to feel sorry for us and our sick pup.

Poor Midnight. Since we got her on November 23rd She’s had or been diagnosed with:

• – Pine shavings in her stool (that was the bedding at the breeders farm)
• – bacteria in her stool treated twice with three antibiotics and two stomach medication
• – Antibiotic and Stomach medication injections
• – 2nd set of vaccinations
• – left eye infection
• – right ear infection
• – roundworms – treated three times with Drontal Plus
• – swollen right eye
• – three stool tests including Culture and sensitivity
• – diarrhea, diarrhea and diarrhea ….. and that continues!

Her stool has been tested three times. The last test was an expensive stool culture and sensitivity test to rule out Giardia, salmonella and other dangerous bacterial infections. It was all negative. So she no longer has any kind of intestinal bacterial infection.

She’s underweight and has only gained .5 of a kilo (that’s just over a pound) in the three and a half weeks that we’ve had her.

Now, since it seems that the minor intestinal bacterial infection that she came to us with is gone we’ve decided to change her diet.

I know the round worms might be the soul cause of her diarrhea but she’s had three treatments for it now so that too should be gone or just about gone. So the only other thing that we could try to resolve her diarrhea was to address her diet. Perhaps some of the ingredients in her food were causing upset or maybe she has an allergy to some of the ingredients. So we changed her diet to Blue Buffalo Large breed puppy food. It’s all natural with no preservatives, no wheat, no corn and no soy. She’s only been on it since Monday evening and we were mixing it with the remainder of her medical diet so we haven’t seen any big improvement in her stool yet, but I’m hoping things will change soon.

The vet thought we’d give her a rest of medications over the next few weeks unless she gets worse. Since she’s had a lot of meds her bodies been through a lot and it might just need time to adjust back to normal before her diarrhea goes away. He also brought up the fact that she might have some kind of congenital problem that could be causing her symptoms like liver shunts. Her heart sounds fine so he thinks her heart is probably ok.

Poor thing. After she vomited on Wednesday the vet told us to not allow her to have any water for 12 hours (yeah, try walking a snow loving puppy and have her not eat some snow!) and not to eat for 24 hours. Well our little puppy loves her food and treats. In fact we’re training her with treats so going 15 minutes without a little morsel is painful for her. LOL

Needless to say there was a lot of whining that day. Midnight ran to the kitchen to check her food and water bowls constantly and my patience was worn thin.

Even worse, whenever she got excited … like playing fetch with Chris when he came home from work, her right eye would swell up again. I was starting to think that maybe she had a blood pressure problem or maybe the pressure had increased in her head causing her eye to swell.

Yes, nurses who know too much get some pretty scary thoughts!

It was a long day.

Late in the evening I was able to give her some ice cubes to suck on and she had a ball chasing the ice cubes around on the floor. She made a game of it, but she had a drink.

On Thursday morning her right eye looked a lot better, but it swelled up again when she ate her breakfast. I thought about food allergies then, but I also remembered that a few times the day before when she got excited her eye swelled. Worst of all her left eye swelled up a bit too!

I’m still not sure what’s going on there. Her eye hasn’t swollen badly again since Thursday morning but both eyes look a little glossy. I’ve been giving her eye drops just in case there’s an infection going on.

So as you can see I’ve been pretty busy over the last few weeks caring for my sick, yet energetic, Labrador Retriever puppy.

She’s been on a special medical diet and we were adding white rice and broth to her food to treat the diarrhea and to help keep her hydrated. Heck we even added Gatorade to her water to help in that regard.

I’m at my wits end as to how to help her. We’ve done just about everything we can – I think. She’ll have a few good days and then something like the eye swelling will happen.

All I can do is keep my fingers crossed that the new diet helps and that she starts to get better as time goes by.

Wish me luck and bear with me if my blogging is a little less than normal please. I have a sick fur baby.