Last week we noticed our 9 month old little girl Mandy didn't feel well. She seemed out of sorts-she threw up quite a bit and had diarrhea. Wednesday rolled around and she seemed a little better, but she only wanted to sleep and go outside. She wasn't eating or drinking much, and when she did she quickly threw it up.
Thursday evening I was concerned enough to take her to the emergency vets. They checked her blood and took x-rays, and we saw a round "object" in the x-rays. The vet took me into a room and we went over the x-rays; indeed there appeared to be a round ball in the area of her stomach. She was quickly put on IV fluids and surgery was scheduled to remove it the next day (Friday). My wife and I wracked our brains trying to figure out what it might be, since we try to be very careful about small objects (no small balls, bones, rawhides, etc).
Friday I received a call after the surgery that it wasn't a "foreign object ingestion", but her stomach, intestines and lymph nodes were all swollen and inflammed. The round mass was actually inflammation-it fooled 3 vets and me. It looks like something she was eating was causing her a lot of gastric distress. If we would have let it go much longer it probably would have killed her.
Saturday we brought her home with a bland diet, painkillers and anti-inflammatory pills. We've been catering to her for the last couple days as she recovers from the surgery.
The surgeons took biopsies and sent them to a pathologist to see if we can figure out what might have caused the issue. We should have the results by the end of this week, but it's probably something she was eating-I have some suspicions that it might have been crab apples. She eats a lot of them from 2 trees that flank our deck. I found an article on the ASPCA website about crab apples and dogs that describe her symptoms to a "T". Murphy never eats the crab apples, but Mandy is often reaching up grabbing as many as she can.
As I'm writing this Mandy is in the living room with my wife-my wife is laying on the floor and Mandy is attacking her face trying to lick her nose. It's a great feeling to see my little girl back to her normal self. She's still sore from the surgery and we need to keep her somewhat quiet for a few more days, but she's doing great. Much better than the puppy that, just last week only went from her bed to the deck to throw up, then back to bed. I cringe at the thought that we might have lost her and I'm sure glad I didn't wait to take her to the emergency vets.
I think I'll go give both Mandy and Murphy a hug, just because I can.
Thursday evening I was concerned enough to take her to the emergency vets. They checked her blood and took x-rays, and we saw a round "object" in the x-rays. The vet took me into a room and we went over the x-rays; indeed there appeared to be a round ball in the area of her stomach. She was quickly put on IV fluids and surgery was scheduled to remove it the next day (Friday). My wife and I wracked our brains trying to figure out what it might be, since we try to be very careful about small objects (no small balls, bones, rawhides, etc).
Friday I received a call after the surgery that it wasn't a "foreign object ingestion", but her stomach, intestines and lymph nodes were all swollen and inflammed. The round mass was actually inflammation-it fooled 3 vets and me. It looks like something she was eating was causing her a lot of gastric distress. If we would have let it go much longer it probably would have killed her.
Saturday we brought her home with a bland diet, painkillers and anti-inflammatory pills. We've been catering to her for the last couple days as she recovers from the surgery.
The surgeons took biopsies and sent them to a pathologist to see if we can figure out what might have caused the issue. We should have the results by the end of this week, but it's probably something she was eating-I have some suspicions that it might have been crab apples. She eats a lot of them from 2 trees that flank our deck. I found an article on the ASPCA website about crab apples and dogs that describe her symptoms to a "T". Murphy never eats the crab apples, but Mandy is often reaching up grabbing as many as she can.
As I'm writing this Mandy is in the living room with my wife-my wife is laying on the floor and Mandy is attacking her face trying to lick her nose. It's a great feeling to see my little girl back to her normal self. She's still sore from the surgery and we need to keep her somewhat quiet for a few more days, but she's doing great. Much better than the puppy that, just last week only went from her bed to the deck to throw up, then back to bed. I cringe at the thought that we might have lost her and I'm sure glad I didn't wait to take her to the emergency vets.
I think I'll go give both Mandy and Murphy a hug, just because I can.
