Hi all,
Thank you all for your support and suggestions. Koji’s symptoms started early September. We noticed he was looking a little skinny and suddenly he started throwing up before eating, after eating, eating grass etc. On evening of day 3 and throwing up, we took him to his vet. They gave him a shot to help with the nausea. The last time he had seen his vet was in June for his last puppy shots. From June to September he had not gained any weight. His symptoms were slowly creeping on. That night at the vets office, they did x-rays and said there was no visible foreign object but there was lots of gas and thickening of his small intestines associated with inflammation. Our vet then referred us to a specialist, Internal Medicine doctor. Ultrasound was done, which pretty much revealed the same as the x-ray. From this point on, he just got worse. He was put on so many medications, had every blood test done, and everything pointed toward Inflammartory Bowel Disease.
THE BIG PROBLEM: Koji is eating, however, due to whatever is going on in his small intstines, is NOT ALLOWING ANY NUTRIENTS to be absorbed in his body. Hence the continued weight loss. Last week alone he lost 3 pounds within 4 days. He went from 81lbs and is now down to 74lbs. So I’m sure as your reading this, you can see our desperation and dilemma. NOTHING is working. His new vet, who did the NutriScan food sensitivity test and is currently treating Koji, is as baffled as we are. No matter what we feed him, no matter waht supplements we have given him or how often he eats, his body is just not absorbing any nutrients. We tried the Holistic approach along with Western Medicine and NO SUCCESS. Trust me when I say this, we have exhausted every non surgical option to help our boy. I am his voice and his advocate and no matter the cost, we are not giving up on him. I have called so many specialist BEGGING to have a new set of eyes review his medical records and NOT ONE specialist was willing to review them without paying $180.00 and having to bring Koji in for an appointment. I work in the medical field and peer case reviews are done all the time. Why in the hell can’t a group of specialist do the same.
So this is where we are….our baby is in pain, has no life in him, no excitement, no mommy kisses or cuddles. He doesn’t want to be bothered. My husband and I knew the steriods would make him feel like this and we told ourselves we have to suck it up seeing him like this and pray for a damn miracle that the steriods kick in internally and we see progress. Sadly, nothing has changed except him getting skinnier. On the positive, we had his protein levels checkedthis past Tuesday and they are perfect. Meaning he is not in immediate life threathening danger. Meaning we have a little more time to give the steriods a good 2 weeks of waiting and see what happens. There is no worse heart ripping pain than seeing him suffer like this. So as you can imagine, as much as we truly DO NOT want him going through open abdominal surgery, we have no other choice. It’s a major surgery and not one to be taken lightly. The risks associated with this surgery are very high and we could very well loose him. But in our hearts, we feel we are slowly loosing him now. So what’s a parent to do? Risk the surgery and know we will get an exact diagnosis, or do nothing and we end up having to cross him over the rainbow bridge? It’s tuff ya’ll. A very crappy situation to be in. For all we know, and the IM doctor said herself, he could have a piece of plastic or some small object in his intestine that she wasn’t able to see on ultrasound. I can go on and on but in the end, nothing we are doing is working and he isn’t getting any better and I just want a miracle and want my baby back! 🙁
I would like to post his picture so you all can see my beautiful boy but I don’t know how to upload a picture on here as my profile picture.
