Thank you all for your replies earlier. After I posted last night, Snickers developed a really sudden fever and he went from a normal 101 to 104.9 in such a short time. That is probably the highest it has ever been and it was so fast, I panicked and really I literally felt sick myself. I called my vet in the middle of the night and he instructed me to give him a dose of Prednisone, which he had given me to have on hand after one of his past fevers back in April. (He has always responded) well I stayed up all night watching him and monitoring his temperature and trying to cool him off with a wet wash cloth on his belly. He was eventually back down to within normal range by about 5 or 6am.
We decided to have me take him back to UT today and so we are spending the night in Knoxville, Snickers in the hospital, where they can monitor him. My husband didn't think he could survive another night like that.
He kept trying to get away from me today when I would try to pick him up to put him in the car, or move him. He yelped when I picked him up after taking him to potty when we stopped for gas. so it was obvious he was in a lot of pain.
By the time we got to Knoxville today, he had a bit of a fever again. Dr. Kirk said when they gave him some pain meds, his fever went down right pretty quick, so it seems to be pain induced. He had another x-ray done today also and I don't think they found anything too much out of the ordinary from that. She was considering doing another ultrasound, but was going to wait and see how the x-ray came out. I she will re-evaluate his condition in the morning and if he is still doing poorly, he'll probably get that done at that time.
She had also said that she had talked to another professor there, who is there top GI guy and they had discussed some of his symptoms.
I guess for me, right now, I am not really understanding how everything fits together...I really feel the need to understand how their two diagnosis fit together and I'm a bit overwhelmed with information right now...I think they are still not sure if they have found everything yet, because they've said all his symptoms and all the chronic stuff is a bit unusual...it's like there is no cut and dry point where they can exactly say, "that is what he has, that's what's making him sick and as soon as we fix that, he'll stop getting sick".
I am just so terrified about something else like last night happening; where the fever spikes to such a dangerous point in the middle of the night so quickly. I think it made me feel very much out of control to see it happen so fast like that....not that I was in control before, but we had been able to see it coming in a different way. This was more sudden and discouraging because he had only been at the vet's a few hours prior and had seemed like he was on his way to healing then he crashed again. I really felt more hopeless last night than I had previously.
Oh, and Dr. Kirk board certified in small animal nutrition. She's the head of nutrition at UT and formulated the diet for Hills l/d. So, as far as nutrition goes, I think we got lucky and got a vet who will know my dog and will have the knowledge to help in that realm. She did mention wanting to put him on a probiotic, but was talking about waiting until after a certain point....something about his diarrhea being what it is...I can't even remember exactly the reasoning, I was just trying to get a handle on all the info. over the phone yesterday...but, I plan to ask her about that again, because I had always thought it was wise to give a probiotic with digestive problems and especially when treating with antibiotics.
I will post when I find out something more...they'll probably try to observe him at least until tomorrow afternoon, I think. |