So a lot of you probably know that Max had been sick for about a month now. It all started with him starting to pee EVERYWHERE ALL the time. So, turns out he had a pretty nasty bladder infection. Cool, got him some antibiotics, no problemo. That was on a Thursday afternoon. Forward to Saturday when the little guy is peeing BLOOD all the time and still peeing EVERYWHERE. Cue trip to the Animal ER. Let me do a quick shout out to everyone in the world who aspires to be a Vet, because you all rock my world, right now... someone asked me why you'd want to be a vet and not a 'real' doctor and I was all, UMM hello??!?! My dog is my child, therefore his "vet", is a "real" doctor. Boom. K, back to the story.
So after the about 3 hours at the Animal ER, x-rays, vitals, and ultrasounds, turns out the little guy had bladder stones! BUT not just any kind of bladder stone. Oh no, chalk up another weird, low percentage of something happening, happen to ME :) These stone are formed from a bacteria build up from a liver shunt! Never heard of it? Well, if you have a yorkshire terrier, I recommend you NOT Google it. :) Why you say? Cause it'll make you want to ball your little eyes out for what you'll have to put your little puppy through :/ (I decided to do this after the doc told us what was up and was waiting to get Max)
So, liver shunts. Basically, a vein from his intestines is bypassing his liver all together, and instead of getting cleaned of bacteria in his liver, it's going directly into his blood stream :( Causing all sorts of issues. Poor little guy!!! It all occurs around the 1 year mark of puppies, yorkies are more prone to this problem, but I'd never heard of it before and I know tons of people with yorkies! Hence the weird, low percentage things that always happen to me. NO joke, ask my mom all the weird uncommon things I had as a child. It's ridiculous.
So, blindsided by this news, thinking he just had bladder stones, the nurse starts explaining what needs to happen. Surgery? Like, you're gonna cut open my little boy??? She begins to explain the different types of liver shunts and the only way to know which one it is, is to actually get inside and see it. GREAT! So, as I'm being told the most common, is this single vein, that they find and insert a little ring that closes up over time and eventually redirects the blood straight to the liver. Possibility 2 (like 5-10% chance), there are multiple shunts covering his entire liver...so they can't just close em up, you can only medically maintain at this point. Possibility 3, they can find the single vein, so they have to inject a die to "find" it and close it up. Cool. OK, so most common single vein, find it, plug it, move on with your lives!
NOPE...Max has the second. Multiple shunts covering his liver, making it look like cobblestone...making his surgery, beside the removal of all the bladder stones, purely exploratory :/ My little boy does not have a perfect cure at this point. (Insert the sound of my heart breaking for my little boy here) The doc also said that his liver was very small and discolored, raising concern to her. AWESOME! Let's make it worse, shall we? So, she sent in like 7 different tests to check his liver state, the possibility of his body absorbing too much metal, some bacteria cultures and even the bladder stones are being tested. (Insert a few dollar signs for all this here) Oh, but I was told I won't have to pay for the little ring they were gonna have to put in him. Oh, thanks doc!!! Well, DUH!!
OK, so my boy has been cured of the bladder stones after 3 weeks, so he won't have to urge to go every 5 seconds nor will he be peeing so much blood anymore, if any. Great :) And he is doing good in recovery, so I should have been able to bring him home Thursday afternoon! Sweet! Missed my little guy! Doc calls Thursday morning. Welp, good news, he did great through the night, has been moving around a little, going to the bathroom, eating! Wonderful!! BUT then someone gave him double the dose of pain meds this morning. Because if Max's size, this is A LOT and we will need to keep him on fluids and monitor him for at least 24 hours, to make sure he does get stomach ulcers, kidney issues, or intestinal damage. WOW, are ya kidding me with this?!?!
OK, I'll let that slide as long as he OK. Doc said he was doing fine and I could come visit him! YAY!! :) (Insert sick feeling from seeing him so drugged up and cut up here, along with total excitement to let him know I didn't just leave him to get poked and prodded at) So I go Thursday afternoon to see him :( His face looked so sad, his belly was purple from all the swelling and bruising, he had an IV coming out of his front paw and a cone around his neck. OH, and he just had a quick butt bath from some accidental poop issues....:/ But he was super kissy and just sat with me for a bit :) It made me feel better to just be with him for a little while and give him some lovins :)
So, I work from home Friday in anticipation of getting him, they call late morning and it's time to bring him home! :) He's been on 5 different medications and a special diet, but he's doing good! Slept most of Friday, probably just exhausted from the Hospital for a couple days. Saturday was perking up, doing good, but so drugged up on pain meds, antibiotics, etc. He's been pretty lathargic, which is good for him. He needs his rest :)
He's been good all weekend and I've been watching my parents dogs too, which they have been wonderful around Max, leaving him be and just chillin with him :) He's moving around way better and has gotten a little bit of his spunk back :) You can tell he's still uncomfortable at times and I'm sure those STAPLES in his stomach feel GREAT, so I've been carrying him outside to go potty, but I'm glad he's recovering, so far, really well. His belly barely has any bruising anymore and everything is looking good!
Right now, it's a waiting game on the results of all the tests. Honestly, I'd love for everything to come back normal. Then he'd just be on a structured diet and one medication twice a day for life. NO biggy. He loves the new food and the medicine! SCORE. No force feeding or trickery :)
Needless to say, my life has been a little stressful worrying about him the last month, on top of starting to sell Jewelry :) (more on that later)... Here is to hoping the results are normal and the rest of the year is uneventful :( I had to skip a trip to Green Bay, WI, playing wedding planning with the girls for this surgery... But I'll go up in the fall, so all is well! And maybe the maxanator will go with me :)
So after the about 3 hours at the Animal ER, x-rays, vitals, and ultrasounds, turns out the little guy had bladder stones! BUT not just any kind of bladder stone. Oh no, chalk up another weird, low percentage of something happening, happen to ME :) These stone are formed from a bacteria build up from a liver shunt! Never heard of it? Well, if you have a yorkshire terrier, I recommend you NOT Google it. :) Why you say? Cause it'll make you want to ball your little eyes out for what you'll have to put your little puppy through :/ (I decided to do this after the doc told us what was up and was waiting to get Max)
So, liver shunts. Basically, a vein from his intestines is bypassing his liver all together, and instead of getting cleaned of bacteria in his liver, it's going directly into his blood stream :( Causing all sorts of issues. Poor little guy!!! It all occurs around the 1 year mark of puppies, yorkies are more prone to this problem, but I'd never heard of it before and I know tons of people with yorkies! Hence the weird, low percentage things that always happen to me. NO joke, ask my mom all the weird uncommon things I had as a child. It's ridiculous.
So, blindsided by this news, thinking he just had bladder stones, the nurse starts explaining what needs to happen. Surgery? Like, you're gonna cut open my little boy??? She begins to explain the different types of liver shunts and the only way to know which one it is, is to actually get inside and see it. GREAT! So, as I'm being told the most common, is this single vein, that they find and insert a little ring that closes up over time and eventually redirects the blood straight to the liver. Possibility 2 (like 5-10% chance), there are multiple shunts covering his entire liver...so they can't just close em up, you can only medically maintain at this point. Possibility 3, they can find the single vein, so they have to inject a die to "find" it and close it up. Cool. OK, so most common single vein, find it, plug it, move on with your lives!
NOPE...Max has the second. Multiple shunts covering his liver, making it look like cobblestone...making his surgery, beside the removal of all the bladder stones, purely exploratory :/ My little boy does not have a perfect cure at this point. (Insert the sound of my heart breaking for my little boy here) The doc also said that his liver was very small and discolored, raising concern to her. AWESOME! Let's make it worse, shall we? So, she sent in like 7 different tests to check his liver state, the possibility of his body absorbing too much metal, some bacteria cultures and even the bladder stones are being tested. (Insert a few dollar signs for all this here) Oh, but I was told I won't have to pay for the little ring they were gonna have to put in him. Oh, thanks doc!!! Well, DUH!!
OK, so my boy has been cured of the bladder stones after 3 weeks, so he won't have to urge to go every 5 seconds nor will he be peeing so much blood anymore, if any. Great :) And he is doing good in recovery, so I should have been able to bring him home Thursday afternoon! Sweet! Missed my little guy! Doc calls Thursday morning. Welp, good news, he did great through the night, has been moving around a little, going to the bathroom, eating! Wonderful!! BUT then someone gave him double the dose of pain meds this morning. Because if Max's size, this is A LOT and we will need to keep him on fluids and monitor him for at least 24 hours, to make sure he does get stomach ulcers, kidney issues, or intestinal damage. WOW, are ya kidding me with this?!?!
OK, I'll let that slide as long as he OK. Doc said he was doing fine and I could come visit him! YAY!! :) (Insert sick feeling from seeing him so drugged up and cut up here, along with total excitement to let him know I didn't just leave him to get poked and prodded at) So I go Thursday afternoon to see him :( His face looked so sad, his belly was purple from all the swelling and bruising, he had an IV coming out of his front paw and a cone around his neck. OH, and he just had a quick butt bath from some accidental poop issues....:/ But he was super kissy and just sat with me for a bit :) It made me feel better to just be with him for a little while and give him some lovins :)
So, I work from home Friday in anticipation of getting him, they call late morning and it's time to bring him home! :) He's been on 5 different medications and a special diet, but he's doing good! Slept most of Friday, probably just exhausted from the Hospital for a couple days. Saturday was perking up, doing good, but so drugged up on pain meds, antibiotics, etc. He's been pretty lathargic, which is good for him. He needs his rest :)
He's been good all weekend and I've been watching my parents dogs too, which they have been wonderful around Max, leaving him be and just chillin with him :) He's moving around way better and has gotten a little bit of his spunk back :) You can tell he's still uncomfortable at times and I'm sure those STAPLES in his stomach feel GREAT, so I've been carrying him outside to go potty, but I'm glad he's recovering, so far, really well. His belly barely has any bruising anymore and everything is looking good!
Right now, it's a waiting game on the results of all the tests. Honestly, I'd love for everything to come back normal. Then he'd just be on a structured diet and one medication twice a day for life. NO biggy. He loves the new food and the medicine! SCORE. No force feeding or trickery :)
Needless to say, my life has been a little stressful worrying about him the last month, on top of starting to sell Jewelry :) (more on that later)... Here is to hoping the results are normal and the rest of the year is uneventful :( I had to skip a trip to Green Bay, WI, playing wedding planning with the girls for this surgery... But I'll go up in the fall, so all is well! And maybe the maxanator will go with me :)
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