blood tests, her enzyme levels were through the roof - one was 200 x what it
should be, the other was too high to measure. Her platelet count was very
low (40,000 - not sure what normal is but mildly low is 120,000). That was
on Monday. She stayed at the vets until Thursday (coming home with us at
night). She still wasn't eating properly and she'd developed a heart murmer
(probably from the low platelets).
She went back in last Saturday (a week ago) to check her enzyme and platelet
levels again. The enzymes were back to normal (yay!) but the platelets had
dropped more (31,000). Basically, anything under 50,000 means problems
clotting and under 20,000 means probably bleeding to death. So, we needed to
do something for her. But, the problem is that we don't know why the
platelets are low. The vet thinks that the pancreatitis probably exacerbated
something else, instead of being the cause of the low platelets. She said we
could take her to the vet school for a bone marrow biopsy, but I did some
research and found out that evaluating the types of cells in the blood
sample can tell you almost the same thing. So, I asked the vet about the
types of cells in the blood sample. She confirmed that there were lots of
immature cells, which would indicate that the bone marrow is functioning and
that Scully probably has an immune disorder of some sort that is attacking
the platelets.
So, the treatment for an immune disorder is steroids. Simple enough, except
that steroids can cause pancreatitis. Ugh. Since we had to do something, we
put her on steroids and are hoping for the best. She's eating again and
hasn't thrown up at all or shown any other signs of the pancreatitis coming
back (whew). She got another blood draw on Saturday and we should get the
results today. If this isn't working, the next step is chemotherapy drugs.
So, keep your fingers crossed that the results today are good.
-Deanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erika L Walker-Arnold" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "CF-Community" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2003 11:06 AM
Subject: RE: poor puppy
> So what happened to this doggie???
>
> Cheers,
> Erika
>
> >>| -----Original Message-----
> >>| From: Deanna Schneider [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>| Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 3:01 PM
> >>| To: CF-Community
> >>| Subject: poor puppy
> >>|
> >>| She goes to the vet today at 11:30. Apparently, eating
> >>| cooking oil can cause
> >>| acute pancreatitis.
>
[Todays Threads] [This Message] [Subscription] [Fast Unsubscribe] [User Settings]
