Hi everyone,
As title says, just want to put this out to the universe to see if we can get some hope and some additional good vibes and prayers sent to our baby. He is a 7-year old mutt and late Thursday/early Friday began his fourth bout of Hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, or so we thought!
It has always started the same: lots of puking, followed by an eventual turn into diarrhea with some blood, rapid dehydration. The first time he just needed a subcutaneous fluid bubble and that was it. Second time he was hospitalized overnight with IV fluids. Third time was ambulatory again. This time….he puked more times than he ever has before. They actually sent us away the first time we showed up even though we knew how this would progress because his vitals looked fine. Then, about two hours later he was panting and pooped his classic raspberry jam color & consistency stool so we brought him back in. The vet checked his heart rate and said it was 90, which is low for a dog with acute gastroenteritis so he said there was a possibility for Addison’s disease, which was then confirmed as atypical later.
Yesterday was a rollercoaster. From being told they could manage it and he would likely be discharged at night, to being told he was actually much sicker than normal and might need a mainline IV, to then being told he didn’t need one because he was improving on his own, to then his blood pressure dropping to 55, being told he had a 50/50 shot to survive and to come into spend time with him, to being told the mainline iv seemed to be helping and his blood pressure had stabilized.
We got to see him, and he has a bag hooked up to his bowels which is basically just continuously dripping blood out of him. We’ve been told this is concerning but not altogether surprising. They have given him lots of albumin to replace the protein and his levels are improving. They sedated him to put in a nasal feeding line and will try nutrition later tonight.
This has been absolutely awful and I’m having a hard time seeing stories similar to this one. We’re hoping his odds have gone up a bit since last night since he is holding stable but the vet says we are still in a critical point.
We are so worried and just looking for advice or reassurance or i don’t even know. We just want to get him through this now that we know so we can manage it well for him.
Please please, if you can send some well wishes to our boy Ardy, or some prayers if you pray, we could really use all the good energy.
Thank you.
And if your dog has repeated issues like excessive shedding, chronic GI issues, and other subtle symptoms, look into Addison’s disease.