From:
Kristine
Date: 2001-05-06 20:37:00 UTC
Subject: Need help with Snowflake
Ok first off, I'll apologize for the size of this post. But I'm hoping
giving all the info might help someone help us here.
Snowflake-Young gal that is not quite 3 years old.
Over the past month she has been steadily dropping wieght.
She had her anual distemper shots about that long ago and
wieghted in at 1 lb 8 ozs. She now wieghts 14 ozs.
It started up when I was gone for a couple days. I had someone
here watching the fur kids here for me. She does not like
change and never has. Apparently this was enough to get her
worked up. She refused to eat on her own till I got home. She
had lost a couple ozs then. Once I was back she was eating
duck soup on her own. Right now it's a mix of a/d, chicken baby
food, dyne, pet tinic and little pau d' arco. She is eating 3-4 large
bowls a day. Approx 90 cc's each bowl. She's finishing each
one almost completely and then her cage mate is licking up any
left overs. Left overs are not more than 10 cc's and her cage
mate is getting down right fat on it. Yet, even though Snowflake
is eating all this food since a month back she is continueing to
lose weight.
Doing blood work was awful. Hardly got any blood from her. My
Vet is usually a pro at this and just barely got enough do lab
work with. Well..as things work out the darn machine broke half
way through the test. All that did come out was totally
normal...but we got no wbc and several other important things
from it before it conked out. We looked at some of the blood
under the microscope and could see there looked to be a high
number of wbc's. No lymphcytes.
Her coat is beautiful. Full, thick, and soft. Giving the impression
if you only look at her that she is the picture of health, that is until
you pick her up and realize that is all she is. Up till the last week
her poop looked pretty good..formed and only slightly softer than
should be. Now they are getting weirder. Still formed, but kinda
jello like in consistancy. (did fecal-nothing there either)
For the last 12 days she has been on clavamox, in case of
infection. And also on pred (.25 mg twice daily)..in case of the
dreaded lymphoma..which we are kinda wondering if it is.
Saturday morning we woke to her having a yellowish crust on
her eyes. I put terramyacin on her eyes after cleaning them. I've
continued putting it on her eyes twice a day. Now just one eye
has some gunk in the corners in it that needs to cleaned just
once daily.
Today her nose looks gunky too. It's greenish/yellowish inside.
It's not dripping out..but way in there where I can see it and get
out a bit if I use a warm wash clothe.
She's still eating. hates the pred and will sometimes gag and
vomit it back up.
We are going back in this afternoon to see the vet. Hopefully we
can actually get blood work done right this time too.
What are we missing? Any ideas? Anything else we should do
when there? I thought even distemper? But we've had no new
shelters here in the last month. And her symptoms don't quite
seem right there, do they? I know she is up to date on her shots
and has been in the last year.
biopsy would seem right if we think lymphoma..but first the blood
work done right. But with what looks like lots of infections and
such low wieght is that even a good plan at all?
she has no hind leg weakness. She is not dehydrated. she is
actually still active even. Not exactly jumping for joy. But she
does wander around a lot and even will run for the playroom
door. She wakes up as soon as I go to the room in hopes for
some more duck soup. I'm definately not ready to give up here.
She's too young and I KNOW she wants to live.
I'm feeling super useless here. My vet I love dearly, but what
steps do we take here?
thank you for listening to my long post.
Kristine