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Lucy has her check-up in UCD tomorrow @ 11am Fingers crossed they are happy with her progress! She’d a bit of a set back on Monday she was a sick, but she’s bounced back anyway. I just came home from the vets with Charlie and she was stomping her teeny feet on the mat and barking and growling at me to say HI

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Lucy is doing very well, she had her first kong tonight:

Hey where you going with my kong:

I’ve to sit on my bed for it:

Tucking in:

Go Away I’m Busy:

Charlie has a go on the bed with his kong:

Lucy & Jodie cuddle up for the night:

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Lucy is still progressing at the mo…She is getting 6grams of protein per day now and this has kept her symptoms really under control, its so brilliant and such a relief, as she puts on weigh her protein and amount increases. She also has a lot more energy now she’s no more symptoms and a bit of weight on her and can run up the stairs will play little games with me and she’ll bite my hands now and use her paws to play, she barks every morning when she see’s me and this morning OH let her out to loo and I came down the stairs so she’d not seen me yet and she ran up the garden to the back door, it was so cute and the fastest I’d seen her move. She’s even giving kisses to my other dogs

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Den Den Den………Lucy is now 2.6kg, she’s out on nearly 0.7kg in the last week, the vet was delighted!

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She’s going to get her drip out today, so I’ll ask them to weigh her and we’ll know exactly what she has put on

She was barking at me this morning when I woke up, and did little laps round my legs and grabbed my toes, this was a great thing to wake up to I can tell ya

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Here is Lucy in work me with my dogs having a nap. Jodie my JRT x to her left and Charlie my collie x to her right. Charlie has liver disease like Lucy but was not a surgery candiate, he has been medically managed since Jan this year which means 6 small meals a day of prescription food, counting his protein and fat grams, and supplements and medication around 10/12 times a day he is doing very well at the moment and even competes in agility now.

Lucy has a bit of that little twinkle in her eye today!

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I wasn’t happy with Lucy yesterday the afternoon I was worried she just had no energy and had gone backwards it seemed. I took her to the vet where they put her on IV for the night to hydrate her and flush her toxins out quicker. She is home now, and is in great form. She is eating and drinking, wagging her tail going toilets normally and giving lots of kisses so I am delighted and relieved. She is such a special girl.

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She is very tiny, she is not even 2kgs, my scales weighed her as 1.1kg but with her jumper on in UCD she was just under 2kg I spoke with UCD this morning as she is still having a lot of symptoms of HE and she is starting on an additional medication, so please god we get it under control and get some weight on her!

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Todays update

Lucy had symtoms of Hepatic Encephalopathy last night. She started pacing and circling over and over and bumping into things. I’d read up a lot on it and knew straight away was not good, I’d remembered you need to administer their lactulose every hour an hour to stop it getting worse. Thankfully it passed after nearly two hours but was a severe reminder that she is still a very sick little girl and needs ALL the prayers in the world!

http://www.petplace.com/dogs/hepatic-en … page1.aspx

The clinical manifestations of HE can range from mild (unusual behavior) to severe (coma).
Hysteria
Unpredictable bouts of aggression
Staggering
Pacing
Compulsive circling
Pressing the head against a wall
Sudden apparent blindness
Tremors
Seizures
Coma-like state[/quote:1rvq9nly]

However today she woke up with a starving, and has started eating her own food all by herself. This is a major breakthrough. Now she is begging for food but we cannot just let her free feed as this will put too much pressure on her liver and she’ll get too much protein and will be back to exactly square one again! I’d love to just let her eat till she felt all full up probably for the first time in her life But after lasts nights scare, we are extremly happy with how she is today, I carried her out in her jumper and wrapped in her blankie for a little bit of fresh air today she really enjoyed herself looking all around her, my dogs are being very good with her, the constantly come over to check on her, they even understand she is not well Please keep Lucy in your prayers still xxx

[laurac]

Little Lucy Update:

Lucy has turned into a lap HOGGER, I’m typing with my laptop at arms length as she just wants to be cuddled and has to stay on my lap, this is a small sign she is on the up as I remember my own dog only ever wanted to be on his own in little holes like behind the sofa etc. She’s a little floozy and just adores my husband, she just loves looking at him and when he’s in the room it’s his lap she has to sit on!!!

Undoubtedly the most difficult part to medically managing a dog with liver disease is the severe lack of appetite, it reduces you to tears. You can see how thin and sick they are just they just can’t eat. It took me and my aunt about 40 mins to syringe two pieces of soaked kibble into her today. It’s heart breaking, I often sat and cried with Charlie because he will just refuse point blank to eat But it is so much harder with the little women as she is painfully thin. But since she had the two kibble she got a little flicker of a spark. She dug up her bed to make it comfy and thought she was going to have a little chomp on the wires of the computer!!!!! This made me very happy (I know, weird) but was because I saw a tiny, tiny flicker of the puppy she should be

For anyone that has not met Lucy is very hard to imagine the size she is. I was shocked. Here is a photo of her to show her size. This is my husband and my JRT x on the sofa, to the right and the very back of the sofa is a tiny white bundle, that is Lucy

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Little Lucy tonight settling in, she’s eaten a little bit, she’s drank a little bit and had some medication, we are just waiting for a wee now

Her is some info from Lucys Discharge Advice for anyone that would like a read:

Diagnosis: Portosystemic Shunt

Procedures Perfomred: panel of bloods, ammonia testings, urinalysis, faecal examinations, abdominal ultrasounds.

Medication: Lactulose 2mls x 3 times per day
Beatamox, 40mg – 1 X twice per day
Royal Canin Hepatic – At Least three times per day.

Discharge Instructions:
”Lucy has been diagnosed with a portosystemic shunt, this means that one of her blood vessels that carries blood from the intestines to the liver has not been developed properly and the blood by passes the liver resulting in toxins and nutition not being filtered by the Liver.
Surgery may repair the abnormality however we need to medically manage lucy first to get her stronger and try to improve her body weight and blood proteins. We should see Lucy again in 3 weeks and I will speak with the surgeons in the meantime.”

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I believe she will have surgery in about three weeks (fingers crossed) to close off the shunt so everything will pass through her liver to be cleaned. If anyone wants to read about the type of thing she has this is a good website http://www.vet.utk.edu/clinical/sacs/shunt/faq.php
There is a bit half way down about surgery and what that entails.

For the moment she needs lots of support and the work load eased on her liver so she will be getting fed six small meals per day of a prescription food with no meat, she will also need multiple supplements and medication to rid her blood of bacteria, ammonia, and toxins because at the moment her liver can’t clean things for her and the toxins etc get to her brain and hence plenty of problems.

My own dog has millions of tiny shunts and this could not be repaired in surgery so he has to be medically managed for life so it will be second nature to us to get her ready for her op, we are already well in a routine I’m looking forward to meeting this little women tomorrow

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Have sent you a pm

The poor girl, they are all text book signs of liver disease, stunted growth, underweight, impossible to get to eat, exchausted…

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I would also like to share my loving thoughts on Nala from the doggie day care side of minding her

Nala is a really, really pretty girl, she is just so pretty and petit in the flesh, its hard to describe. The first day I met her she hide under a chair, I spent about an hour just sitting with her as she wouldn’t come to say hello, what brought her out of her shell was another dog coming into eat the treats I’d be giving to her It was the first sign I saw of the little cheeky monkey that was to emerge over the coming weeks )))) I brought her for a little walk where she really began to shine and really started to take a piece of my heart!

The next day I decided to bring her in to meet all the other dogs, within again about an hour she was running with all the other but keeping a very watchful eye on what her foster sisters Sheba and Cassie where doing. I remember trying to hand feed her and I broke a biscuit in half just as I bent down to her and she ran away, the breaking of a biscuit frightened her But thankfully those days are slowly but surely fading away.

Now she jumps from the jeep, comings running in the door, offers licks and kisses to all the staff, gets straight into her bed and waits to come out to play, at nap times and home time again she runs straight to bed, she loves her routine, really listens to the humans minding her and she loves playing with other dogs her age especially and really loves her grub! She has many doggie pals separate to her foster sisters now and she loves playing with the girls her own age. But she has many friends. She is now very confident while playing and really is a right character, we get lots of laughs from this little madam now, she can deal with almost any situation including those big lab boys that all love this pretty little collie girl! In between play time she will run to the staff for her treats and licks and cuddles – its amazing! She has brought tears to our eyes to see the amazing transformation that happened before our eyes!

Nala is an extremly specially girl and just by meeting her transforms you life. When you win her over you see the amazing and super special dog she is, she really, really deserves a kind loving home. You will be rewarded for the rest of your life with a truely amazing girl that has overcome an horrible start in life! If someone has a little bit of time please meet this girl, you won’t regret it, within minutes of meeting her you just know how speical she is. She is one in a million thanks to her foster mammy Liz, and her two foster sisters Cassie & Sheba, she went to the best foster home thats for sure now she just needs her own best forever home!

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Hi Liz,
As you know we have had a long battle with Charlie with his liver disease, it was suspected that he had a shunt like this girl but turned out this wasn’t the case he in fact had a different type of liver disease (Micro Vascular Dysplacia – some dogs that have a shunt also have MVD but it will only be discovered after surgery). I have researched this topic till I was blue in the face and am a member of great liver disease group too that can offer so much help and advice. If you want someone experienced dealing with liver disease to foster her I would be happy to help Otherwise can offer info and support and prescription food and some supplements to the person that fosters
Laura x

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