Part II -
In our first few days together, we took Lilly on our first walks around Mare's neighborhood and my apartment complex. Lilly immediately proved to be a bulldozer of a walker, straining against her leash as hard as she could as she huffed and puffed her way down the street. OK, so we have some work to do here. One thing we noticed on these walks is that she spit up food pretty regularly after straining on her leash. OK, she's a puppy, and puppies puke. No big deal. One woman at my complex commented how nice Lilly was, and Lilly promptly barfed her up a colorful thankyou.
Hmm...funny but a little strange. It was too frequent, and the dry kibble she was yacking up didn't look very digested. Ah well, we had an appointment with Dr. Schmidt at Arbor View in a few days anyway for him to give her a good onceover, and I'm sure he'll tell us what's up. She's happy and healthy, so everything is OK, right?
We took her in to Arbor view several days later for her checkup. Upon describing the puking problem to Dr. Schmidt, he indicated it sounded a little suspicious. He said she might have a stricture in her esophagus, and there was a longshot possibility it was a serious condition called Megaesophagus; a condition where the esophagus isn't formed properly and doesn't have the pliability it should have. They kept her for a few hours, fed her some Barium laced dogfood, and took some X-rays. They said they would call in a couple hours with more info.
The call I got from Marilyn a few hours later was definitely not what I wanted to hear. Megaesophagus it was. This was bad news, and took some time to absorb. We were pretty upset to hear it, and it took a good deal of handholding and deep breaths to ready ourselves for the options.
It wasn't as bad as it could be. She was clearly happy and healthy, which meant enough food was reaching her stomach for her to grow and feel normal. He recommended a few drugs that would help tighten up the esophagus, and coat her esophagus to avoid the inevitable irritation that she felt with all the food just sitting there. We also had to change her food regimen; the dry kibble had to be replaced with canned food mixed with water....into a pea soup consistency. Also, we needed to start feeding her with her head held high, so simple gravity would help the food get down. OK, we can handle that. The downsides were significant; she is very vulnerable to secondary pneumonia, and it will always be a question if she is getting all her nutrients. It may shorten her lifespan significantly, or she could live a normal life. No way to tell. We left the Vet very shell shocked, but not disconsolate. We could get through this, and hopefully everything would turn out fine.
It was upsetting though. Mare's previous dog Lucy was a special needs dog, with liver issues and Cushing's disease that required a variety of drugs to keep her functioning normally. The whole reason for getting a young dog was that we wouldn't have to deal with those issues, puppies are supposed to be turn-key! Yet, here we were with another special needs dog. It was very easy to see how this condition went unnoticed by the SPCA, she is otherwise happy and healthy and there was clearly no reason to suspect anything was amiss. Her previous family mentioned nothing of this condition when they turned her in, but Mare and I are convinced that they at least knew she was an abnormal puker....if not the whole story.
No matter. They crate trained her, and for that I'm forever grateful!
So there you go. New dog, bad engine. Nevertheless, Lilly hit the owner jackpot because Mare and I are both totally devoted dog lovers, and experienced with special needs. No way would we give her back, she's here to stay. We just need to have a more focused routine than most folks. Full steam ahead with our little doggie.
Coming up in Part III - new experiences, don't take no for an answer, and why do you have to put EVERYTHING in your mouth, Lilly?
No comments:
Post a Comment