. . . in the distant, early morning . . .

Meet Milton: my second special needs pet

Do you suppose that someone is playing a colossal joke on me?  Or does whatever higher power that exists simply know that I have no reasonable boundary on cost of care, and emotional stress, when it comes to my pets?

2 weeks ago, we drew a lot of blood from Mister Milton.  The blood was to run an allergy panel and GI panel on him.  We needed to find out why he wasn’t putting on weight.  He eats 6% of his weight in food every day.

Turns out Milton is allergic to many things.

Poultry: Chicken and Turkey
Pork
Orchid Grass: timothy, rye, broam

Penicillin!  Staphylococcus.

Alfalfa, many mosses, molds, and fungi.  Soy, and a variety of other things he doesn’t get so I forgot. I’ll have the full packet tomorrow.

So, we know no more poultry.  That’s fine.  Unfortunately I spent about 4 hours preparing this week’s food earlier today and it does include some turkey.  More rabbit, tripe, and sardines than turkey, but some turkey.  He’s going to have to survive one week dealing with this, because nothing else is defrosted.

The allergies could be a pain in the arse to deal with.  But they’re easy compared to the results of the GI panel.

His gastrointestinal system is “not exactly normal.”

TLI - pancreatic function is high.  We did a SPEC-FPL and know he does not have pancreatitis.  Could be renal (read: kidneys)

B12 and Folate both low.  Milton is not absorbing his food properly.  Intestinal disease or bacterial overgrowth.  Proximal small intestine disease - significant.  Could be part of why he’s always thin.

Manageable.  Long-term this can be dangerous: if he can’t absorb nutrients, he could become severely anemic.  If he can’t gain weight, well… you get the idea.

Managed through diet: care to avoid foods he’s allergic to.  Probiotics to help him absorb nutrients.  Trying to get Pancreas Blend from GreenTripe.com through my co-cop, order comes in end of March.

May possibly need antihistamines for allergies, especially the seasonal variety.  If he gets a staph infection, it will be twice as bad for him as for another dog due to his allergies to staph.

Most alarming to me right now?  Potential renal problems/failure.  Tomorrow at 9:30am, instead of going straight to daycare & boarding, he’s getting blood drawn for a chem panel to see what his kidney values are. Will do a full panel to test everything.

I asked the doc “is this life-threatening or manageable?”  Well of course we need to get him absorbing nutrients, and get weight on.  That part is dangerous.  But we believe the rest is manageable.

And to Chris: who said, “why are you adopting a dog with GI problems when you have a special needs cat?” and I said “but his GI problems are under control and gone now” - I don’t regret adopting him, even though I didn’t know they weren’t under control.  I love Milton and well, he’ll get the top of the line care to keep him happy and healthy.

The smiles, happiness, and general wonderfulness that Milton encompasses is well worth whatever care it’s going to take to get and keep him healthy.

More updates once I have more info from the doc, mid-next week.

-Lisa, on February 25, 2011 at 7:35 pm

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