My poor little dog :(

I guess its time to update my blogger friends about my dog.
My dog Druppy is a cocker spaniel we adopted about 6 years ago at the age of 2, so he's roughly 8 years old (in fact I think his brithday is this week sometime, I'll have to see if I can find the papers). He came with the name "druppy", pronounced "droopy" and I didn't have the heart the change his name because in my mind he would know if we spelled it differently. haha. To be honest it never really crossed my mind. One look at him and you can tell the name just fits him and changing the spelling just didn't occur to me.

(I'll add pictures at home, I don't have any good ones at work)

He's been generally healthy the whole time we've had him aside from ear infections and some skin allergies. (completely normal in cockers).

About 2 months ago he had a bout of diarrehea out of the blue and we fed him chicken and rice to get him back on track. since then he's been less and less interested in his dry dog food and sometime just after Christmas he went a few days without eating. To get him back on track we tried the chicken and rice again in his dry dog food to entice him to eat. the little bugger picked out the chicken and rice and left the dog food. Okay, so we htought we'd try a different dog food so I got some from mom's dog. Under normal circumstances if there was any food in Rusty's (my mom's dog) bowl Druppy would eat it right up even if he just ate his whole dinner. Well he barely picked at it. So we kept up with the chicken and rice for a few more days and I bought an entirely different, more natural dog food to try and nothing, barely looked at it. This takes me to around New year's. He started eating less and less chicken and rice at every feeding and last weekend Chris noticed how much more prominent his bones were and we were afraid he was losing too much weight.

so last tuesday I took him to the vet. he was down to 27 lbs and his average was around 32-33 lbs. so he dropped over 5 lbs. 27 lbs is still considered healthy for a cocker but it's definitely under weight for him. So the vet wanted to do some blood work and get some xrays. Well this isn't cheap. I absolutely hate (to the point of nearly making myself sick to my stomach) that medical decisions have to be made based on money.
The Beginning of the year is always hard financially. Even thought it's not much my paycheck almost always goes down due to new insurance costs and of theings that are taken out of my pay check, plus my mortgage went up slightly with escrow recalculations plus just getting the bank account back on track after the holidays. Admittedly we did not save as much as we should've from the money we recieved as gifts, mostly because we were not really spending any money on the house or ourselves for quite a few months and it felt nice to be able to splurge a little. Boy am I ever regretting that now.

So thursday I decided to try to feed him some dog food in peanut butter. Big mistake! Friday he had such bad diarrehea I felt awful. He pretty much wanted nothing to do wit hthe chicken and rice so we decided to try some wet dog food. Now in the past I have avoided giving him soft treats and moist dog food becuase it always made him have soft stool. maybe he's always had a sensitive stomach, who knows. but we couldn't let him go without eating. Well he loved the dog food! he didn't a whole lot, maybe 1/3-1/2 a can that night but it was great to see him so interested in eating. I also called the vet to schedule his blood work as I was afraid the diarrehea might not go away. But saturday morning it was more formed and mucus-y so I thought he might be on the mend (and pretty much decided the peanut butter was a terrible idea!) but I did take him in for his blood work. We had to wait until yesterday for the results, but over the course of the weekend he was acting a bit more energetic (which would still be lazy compared to most dogs - Druppy is by far one of the the laziest dogs ever, but he's a good dog and a perfect fit for us :) so we were optimistic that this was passing and the more he ate the better he would be. We went from hoping the bloodwork would find something fixable, to hoping the blood work would come back normal and he was going to fix himself.

So yesterday I got a call from the vet. His White Blood Cell count was Very high, it was 35,400 when the normal level is 10,000. Last March I had them do a blood panel on him to get some base numbers and I'm glad I did. His level last year was 12,500 so even then it was a bit high. She said this could indicate an infection or cancer (gulp).
What was more alarming to the vet was his very low blood protein. So either he's not making any protein (liver problems) or he's losing protein which happens 1 of 3 ways: 1. through the kidneys, but they don't think this is it b/c his urine sample was ok, 2. in abdonimal spaces, but they don't think this is it, but it's hard to say, 3. Through his intestines. This is the most likely cuase given the issues with the diarrehea and not eating. the vet said his numbers are quite serious and  could be life threatening. YIKES!

She ultimately recommended an abdominal ultra sound, since the cause is more likely liver or intestinal and that gives a better view of the abdomin then an xray. That the chest is better viewed via an xray but it's less likely that the problem is in the chest. it's hard to say though, she's just going on a slight chance. I don't blame her for not really commiting to one cause over the other becuase shedoesn't have all the info yet. lucky for us the ultrasound is slightly cheaper then the xrays so I'm glad we're trying that first. But with that said, there's no way we can afford the xrays right now after the ultrasound if it comes down to that. I already had to do some financial flanangling to have the money for this test. Using a credit card is just not an option for us right now.

So I just dropped him off at the vet. this makes 3 visits in a week and I know he hates that place. the minute I get him in the door he turns and puts his nose to it that he wants to go back out. when I go to sit on the bench he starts shaking (only time/place he ever does that).

Leaving him there I just felt horrible. Just awful. I know he's a dog and I know many people say that dogs are like children so in that sense I guess I'm getting a little taste of what it's like to have to leave your child in the hospital knowing they are getting tests run and it's an awful awful feeling. I can't concentrate, feel sick, can't stop the tears from welling up, can't shake the frown on my face.

I don't know if I want them to find something or not. I don't know how we're going to fix him :(