Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Bailey has Pancreatitis

I am here with news on Bailey. Friday night she seemed perfectly fine...but by Saturday, she didn't seem herself. She was not her usual 'flying around all over the place' and begging for treats. She had gotten sick and we figured she was just not feeling well. But by the afternoon, we became very concerned. She did not want to go out or even get up. So...we called the vet. He told us she might have a blockage and to take her food away for 24 hours. By the next morning...she seemed worse. We put another call into the vet and this time were advised to boil some hamburger and rice and give it to her and call on Monday if she wasn't doing any better. She would pick it up...but then immediately set it down. Right there...I knew something was not good. I tried to coax her into eating some and she finally ate a couple but that was it. We then got her out and walking...hoping that she would gets things moving as she hadn't had a stool since Friday night yet either. When she was back in...she drank water like there was no tomorrow.

I had to work on Monday (New Years Day) early am ... so hubby promised me he would call. He put a call in and they said there was no dr. on call because of New Years. He told them the dr. told him to call but they could not reach him by his pager. Now... I did not know this and hubby made it seem to me that he HAD talked to the dr. and they said to bring her in right away the next morning. He did not, and if I had known that...she would have been heading into an emergency clinic that night. She did seem to feel a little better and was investigating things and wagging her tail a little bit more by that late afternoon...but still did not want to eat.

Tuesday rolled around and we finally got her in right away that morning. By 9:30 am, she was hooked up to IV's and started on antibiotics. Her Liver count and white blood counts were extremely high...one was so high it was off their charts. They suggested we do a serum test as they thought she may have Pancreatitis. Xrays were then taken to make sure there was no blockage.

With Pancreatitis...and we did not know this and were following our vets instructions to keep her well hydrated by offering water .... nothing is to go in through their mouth. Not even water!! I was feeling awful from trying to coax her to eat and was telling her she was such a good girl for doing so.

So...Bailey had been hooked up to IV's for two days and another yet tomorrow. We went to see her tonight and she barely noticed we were there on her run to get outside to pee! Once done with that..she seemed SO happy to see us, as we were happy to see her as well! She looked much brighter eyed and wanted to GO! on the short leash they had provided. We then went back in and were talking with two of the doctors and they told us the serum test had come back. Anything over 400 tells them she has Pancreatitis and hers were well over 1,000. She had just gotten her first meal at 1:00 pm and was able to keep that down, but they wanted to keep her one more day to make sure she was doing well. So, tomorrow morning they will be calling with an update and I will probably pick her up on my way home after work.

Advice from vet is NO table scraps! We never feed them...but Bailey would get beef soup bones that had been boiled with some meat (and probably fat) on it once a week. I have always given these to all three of the dogs for years and we never had a problem...until now. They will no longer be part of her weekly routine. We were also advised to change to another dog food. We feed SD Senior right now but they want to put her on a new kind that is lower in fat. Marily, from the sibeList, offered to send me some great recipes for this that she makes for her dog, Max, who also has Pancreatitis. I have gotten some great information from a lot of people on the list and I was so thankful for that as I was reading a lot of stuff and it really had me scared.

Tomorrow, Bailey will hopefully get to come home and I will post more information then. Thanks to all those who said prayers for her!

Bailey's Mom

2 comments:

Khady Lynn said...

Keep us updated on sweet Bailey! My human read about her on Sibernet, so she was very worried! She hates to hear of any sick doggies!

Good luck, and be sure to give her lots of kisses!

Holly

IndyPindy said...

I'm so glad they quickly found out what the problem is!