Hello everyone,
I am new here. I wish I had found this site sooner. It looks like a wonderful place.
I don't know why I need to post this but, I am feeling sad and lost. My 12 year old girl has had gut problems (diarrhea and vomiting) all of her life. Early on we tried the standard medications and they would work temporaily. I had to finally give in to using the steroid Predizone. I was against the use of steroids. Well, my little girl has now been on Predizone for a long time and it has finally caught up with her. This medicine helped give her quality life and now this medicine is killing her. We recently gave her a sonogram and it showed an enlarged liver (we knew this with an xray), bone deteriation, and a kidney stone. She also is losing weight and hair. She is getting boney and my vet told me yesterday she is "wasting". I asked how long she had and he said it would depend on how fast she would waste but, about 6 months. This is all due to the Predizone. I just can't believe this is happening and I fear that she will deteriate quickly and suffer. I don't want her to suffer. She also has hearing loss, cataracts and she is still getting diarrhea (mostly in the evenings). She licks the floor alot and I would assume it is because her belly does not feel well. On the up side, she has a great appetite (may also be due to the steroids) and she still tries to play with me and her toys each day for a few minutes at a time. She has all of her teeth and we have never had any problems in that area. I have been told she may have good teeth genetics. Her face is thinner but she still has her puppy face (also possibly due to the steroids) and her hair color is still good. Although she has been sick most of her life you would have never guessed it by looking at her. She has always looked and acted like a puppy most of her life. People are still amazed she is 12 years old. Well at least before I had her hair cut short. Now that it is short, her deterioration shows more. Her skin is wrinkled from the wasting.
Like I said I don't know why I feel the need to post this. Advice or support would be helpful. I am not sure what I can do for her now. Yesterday after receiving the bad news I couldn't keep my attention off of her. She got lots of extra attention. And now today I am having difficulty being close to her because I start to cry and she doesn't like it when I cry. She gets upset.
Thanks for listening.
js
