Willie the wonder dog!

So most of you have seen on facebook or heard of Willie's health scare he had a few weeks ago but I decided to sit down and write about everything that happened, even if it's just for my records! We had decided to get new windows put in the house and they were scheduled for May 6 & 7. As we all know, Willie does not like strange men at all, let alone in our house! So the plan was for him to stay at my parents with Uncle Sammy while we had the windows installed. That Thursday, Mom and Laura decided to head out to the lake and let Willie hang out at Laura's condo while the cleaning ladies were at Mom's house. Willie, being the mischievous little punk that he is, got into a pill bottle of Rimadyl that was Tyson's. Laura quickly noticed when she got home the empty pill bottle out in the living room and called Mom/Dad and called the animal emergency hospital. Sam's vet was still opened (ours was closed) so Mom took Willie down to Dr Martin's where they called animal poison control and started him on the Rimadyl overdose protocol as well as had his own case number assigned. He got a dose of activated charcoal there and was sent to the emergency hospital out near us for IV fluids and a few more doses of charcoal. They initially said he'd stay there for 48 hours to have the fluids and he ended up getting 5 doses of charcoal all together...more than originally planned. His lab values were closely monitored and initially his liver values were sky high (like in the 800's and a normal "high" is 200). Rimadyl is an anti-inflammatory and, just like in humans, can cause liver and kidney problems if taken too often or overdosed.

Our hopes were that that Sunday (mother's day) he would get to come home if levels were improving but little did we know our/his battle was just beginning. We had a call from the vet sunday after church saying that his abdomen was very tender and swollen and they wanted to call in a specialist to examine him. They did an emergency ultrasound and found him to have a lot of fluid as well as the stomach lining was 4X as thick as usual. Again, just like in people, you can get ulcers in your stomach from all that medicine. At this point he was not eating much...his poor tummy! They drew some fluid from his stomach and noticed that there were some abnormal cells; this could either be from inflammation due to the meds or cancer that we just didn't know about yet. Talk about a big scare! Monday the specialist called me at work wanting to discuss different plans of care as his kidneys were now failing as well as he also had pancreatitis. They put in a NG tube Sunday night to try to withdraw anything from his stomach. That didn't really help as the tube wasn't big enough in diameter to really suck anything out so they pulled that Monday AM. The vet suggested an esophagostomy tube (e-tube) that would require a minor surgery to put a tube directly into his esophagus. This tube would allow both substance to be withdrawn as well as fluid to be put into the tube. He also had a central line placed and an urinary catheter. His kidney levels continued to stay elevated but his pancreatitis was gone and his liver enzymes were slowly coming down too. He was on some Fentanyl pain medicine for a good part of the week to help his belly not hurt too. He also developed some fluid around his lungs, so they backed off on his IV fluids. He was getting a high amount of fluids to help flush out his kidneys. His cath came out Wednesday and we got to bring him home Thursday night, with the e-tube still in place. Oh he hated this thing and he was also in a "vest" to hold his tube in place and he wasn't a fan of that either. By Wednesday his spunk was starting to return when we visited him and by Thursday you could tell he felt better.

The plan was to leave the e-tube in place until the next Tuesday when we'd have his levels rechecked and go from there. In the meantime we had to give him fluid boluses (180 cc every 6 hours) to help his kidneys. He was also taking a pepcid every morning and at this point eating whatever he wanted because his appetite still wasn't great. So he got chicken, baby food, or wet food every meal! We took him back in on that Saturday for a dressing change because the incision site was a little funky looking and they rechecked labs then to see if the e-tube could be pulled. Nope! His kidney levels were the highest they'd been yet (77...a normal "high" is 27.) Yikes! The vet had us start pepcid twice a day and to recheck in a week. So for another whole week he got his fluid boluses! My mom was great and helped out while we were at work...he almost came to work with me =) Ha! We had the tube pulled when we went back and his levels were still high, but not as high. We started him on the KD diet which is similar to his ID diet but with less protein so it's easier on the kidneys and still kept him on pepcid 2X/day. They asked us to recheck him in 2 weeks. We'd been told he'd always be in some form of kidney failure and to be prepared to consider giving him daily fluid injections morning and night under his skin. Ick...but of course we'd do it if we needed to! Chris took him this Weds. to get rechecked and all of his levels were perfect!!! Kidney values looked great! Chris said the vet was very surprised and of course happy! Our little punk has recovered from another near-death experience...I think he's like a cat with nine lives! Just not sure how many more he has! God totally healed him! He's staying on the KD food and pepcid just once a day! But he's back to normal...attitude, spunk, and he's started unrolling the toilet paper again! It's good to have my toots back and healthy!