Puppy Malaise, Part 3 (Some Good News)

"Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow, too?

Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?"

- William Blake, English poet/painter (1757-1827)

Finally a little good news to report, although it began with high anxiety. On Thursday Stacie had to rush Kaiser to the hospital in the morning. He had a fever over 105° and he couldn't stand up. He hadn't eaten much in three days. On arrival at the hospital he weighed 32lbs. In mid-June he had weighed 43lbs. The hospital put him on intraveneous fluids, and started him on a new drug, Prednisone. I was terrified all day that they were going to call us to come in and put him down. 

Within a few hours his fever was down to 103°, and by the time we picked up him at 7:00pm his fever was right around 101°, which is in the normal range for dogs. He seemed to have some pep and was limping around, but moving under his own power. When we got home he ate a huge bowl of food and a couple cups of whole milk. An hour or so later he ate another big bowl of food, to which we added cottage cheese and roast beef. He also downed another cup of milk. Before we went to bed we took his temperature again and it was still hovering right around 101°.

He slept quite well that night, getting up a couple times to go to the bathroom. The next morning he had two breakfasts (very Hobbit-like, that) and some more milk. His hind leg is still limp and he hobbles on it, but he definitely seems to be responding to the Prednisone. That evening his temp was 100.8°. He doesn't seem to be in distress like he had been.

It's quite a relief to have his fever down and to see him eat again. They think that if it had been cancer, the Prednisone would not have had such an immediate impact - but they still won't rule it out. Now the consensus seems to be some kind of joint inflammation combined with possible auto-immune issues. We'll keep him on the Prednisone for another week and a half, and if his fever stays down and he regains some weight we might be able to finally figure out what really is going on with his leg/joint.

It seems strange to look back on the post from June 14 (Friday Farmer's Market) when we walked down the hill with him, and there were no real red flags.

Happy for small miracles. It was a stressful week.

KJT - Seattle (2008) Photo by Stacie