Just thought I would throw together a quick post about some things that have been happening to Bubba over the last two days. He found one of the sled dogs' rawhides hidden in the yard, and I didn't notice it probably for a while. Didn't think much of it until the next morning his tongue had little flared up spots all over it. These worried me anyhow and I was going to take him to the regular vet on Monday. Then last night the dogs got carrots and soon afterward Bubba's gums started bleeding and it lasted through the night. This morning it had mostly stopped but it was still visibly tender. After a very minimal walk we got home and his mouth was still bleeding. So I called our vet's weekend number and explained all of the happenings. The length of time that he bled has her a bit concerned and told me a lot of the things I described sounded like platelet problems or RAT POISONING! His teeth are pretty bad anyway since I f***ing suck as a dog owner, and I suspect some heavy gum disease of some sort. The local guys here do in house blood work so we're headed there for an 11:30 app[ointment.

Good thoughts everyone, I'm tore up with worry...

We're going to need some support here folks. The initial blood test they did shows he has no platelets. Not only is his mouth all bloody, his eyes and penis are as well. He got an injection of vitamin K and some steroids and something else. Forgive me for not being more specific, but all in all things sound bad and I'm typing through a tear filter on my eyes. I'm just glad we took him in when we did.

Ugh.

Sorry to hear that so is this fixable?

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BONFIRE HUSKIES wrote:

so is this fixable?

It depends. We're basically going through a flow chart of options. First with the vitamin K hoping that it's some sort of poisoning (weird to hope for that), next is possibly a tick borne disease and those are still treatable, lastly would be a genetic immune disorder. The last one is not good, and both the regular vet and the secondary vet that we went to yesterday think a tick disease is very unlikely.

Oh no! Tommy & I are pulling for Bubba, and for you....try to hang in there. Positive thoughts coming your way...!!!

Oh no!! We're sending good vibes your way... poor Bubba You have a PM...

Eddy, I'm so sad reading about this! I hope Bubba is doing better today... do you think the eye issue he had a few months ago is part of this? please keep us posted as I know you are going through a tough time right now. I'm thinking great things for Bubba and the rest of you!

Thanks everyone. The vet called and said his clotting looks normal and that rules out poisoning. So now there's a couple of more tests we can have done (for additional charges of course) to try and narrow this thing down. I was really hoping we wouldn't be going this far.

ETA: Aside from a spot that was pencil eraser sized on Saturday, the bleeding seems to have stopped. His eye was awful and it's white again today.

Continue to keep us posted, Eddy. Hoping for the best.

Maybe I was stressed and didn't listen when the local vet was talking about possible outcomes... But the tick tests came back negative and she was saying it's an "immune mediated cause". Or; something they see here and there that comes up once and in most cases has no recurrence (if the dog makes it through the episode). This involves the super dose of steroids that he's been taking and checking for platelets then lowering the dosage of steroids accordingly. Tomorrow I'm going to find out when we can get him in to our regular vet. I just don't trust people I've recently met, or maybe I just need to hear it from OUR vet. Either way, I'm going forward trying to make him comfortable and thinking positively towards his recovery.

Damitol.

I've been up all night watching Bubba deteriorate. He's having a very hard time standing up and I'm so scared right now. I'm going to take him in first thing today at 8:00am.

Good luck Eddy and Bubba! I'll be thinking of you today.

OH no! shoot i am hoping all turns out ok, i hope your vet can help Bubba more or at least give you some assurance that he will pull through this. We are all hoping good thing for Bubba

Please see today's Holiday Hijack (5/6/2010) to see the results

R.I.P. Bubba