Ava's not eating again

[Stacy]

I don't even know where to put this discussion. I thought Ava was doing better. We increased her prednisone dose on 1/8 to 12.5mg /day. She really perked up and was eating better. Then starting on the 19th she wasn't eating as well. She would eat, but not all of it. So I started putting some salmon on top and she did a little better with that.

Late on the 23rd she had one episode of diarrhea. On the morning of the 24th she had mucous-y diarrhea with blood in it. We went to the vet and they started her on Flagyl, lomotil, and probiotics along with the gross canned science diet for 2 days. She ate the Science Diet okay with some encouragement.

Yesterday she had a normal stool and I transitioned her back to her kibble with some canned Fromm mixed in. I eventually got her to eat most of that. But then this morning I couldn't convince her to eat anything at all. She turned down eggs, she turned down canned food, kibble, canned tuna, treats. 

Then we went outside and she really didn't want to come back in. I don't know what that was about, but it was unusual that she wouldn't come when I called her. I had to go outside and stand her up and walk her back in because I needed to leave for work. 

I'm just at such a loss as to how to help her. It doesn't feel like anything we've done is making her better. She has another appointment at the vet on Thursday. I don't know, maybe I need to stop and pick up some chicken on the way home tonight. I wish she would tell me if there was something she would eat. I just worry about her. 

Stacy

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Thinking of you and Ava and sending loving hugs. None of us are ever ready, ever. You will have the strength you need, when you need it. Let’s pray, though, that the vet has some new ideas. 

[Stacy]

Thank you. It's certainly one of the hardest things I've even had to think about. I don't want to hurt her, I don't want her to hurt. 

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

Hi Stacy -- I haven't been on in awhile and I just now saw your story on Ava.  I haven't read all of the responses so I apologize if someone has already talked about any of this.  With regard to her not eating, when our Sophie got sick with Lymphoma we had a really hard time getting her to eat.  What I seemed to notice was that she would eat something until she got nauseous after eating it and then she wouldn't eat it any longer.  We would try everything trying to just get her to eat.  We spent $200 at the grocery one day buying little bits of everything we could think of to try and see if she would eat.  Does Ava have any meds for nausea?  Some of the things that she would eat were smashed sweet potato.  I would smash up puppy treats and sprinkle them on top.  She also ate baby food lasagna.  The weird part though was she would lick all the sauce off the little round pastas and leave the pastas in the bowl.  And she ate ice cream for awhile.   She would also want to spend a lot of time outside.  One day it was so cold and it was snowing like crazy and she just wanted to lay on the patio.  If I came out to try and get her to come in, she would get up and walk away from me.  I finally just covered her with a blanket and let her lay out there.  Not sure where I'm going with this, but just thought I'd share in case any of it would help.  Hugs to you both.  

[Stacy]

Thank you for sharing that. It's so hard when they don't feel good. I would just do anything to make her feel better. 

[Stacy]

We just got back from the vet. I'm waiting for lab results and the radiologists read from her chest x-ray. But she's down almost another 5 pounds, and her chest x-ray doesn't look good at all. My vet doesn't have the image from our original chest x-ray, but from the vet's notation on it he feels that it looks significantly worse. Before the x-ray he was saying that his hunch was still IBD and that we should try increasing her steroid dose significantly and see what happens, but after the x-ray he said he didn't want to increase the dose and that his thoughts on what is wrong has obviously changed. I don't feel like there is going to be any good news here. From the beginning I've been concerned that this was a lung cancer. I'm not sure if it is, but I'm not sure that whatever it is is any better. He also said it was possible it could be distemper. But said it wasn't very likely. I don't know much about distemper except that she's vaccinated for it and this has been going on for months. How long could it even affect her. So weird. Such an awful mystery illness.

[Debbie and Toby]

Thinking of you, I am so sorry to hear Ava is not feeling well again, I know how difficult this is not knowing how to help her, I hope the Dr calls with some positive news and hopefully a plan to help her feel better..

[Stacy]

Is everyone tired of Ava updates yet? So lab work is all normal. The chest x-ray said a lot of things, but it said possibly it was heart worms and to correlate it with a HW test - so the vet tested it and she came back heart worm negative. It said consider parasitic pneumonia. It said possible eosinophilic pneumonitis, and it said cannot exclude a heart base mass. 

So we're going to try 3 days of panacur to treat for a possible parasitic pneumonia. Theophylline as a bronchodilator to try to improve her breathing and then after the panacur we are going to increase her steroid dosage to 30mg. He wants to give it a week and see if she shows any improvement. And then he said it: at that point if there's no improvement we may have to have a quality of life discussion. 

Wouldn't it be amazing if I could cure all of this nonsense with 3 days of panacur? I can't say that I'm super optimistic, that's just not my nature, but I am really really hopeful that something will work.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I am hopeful too. <3

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

Fingers & paws crossed for good results!

[Amy and Annabelle]

I am hoping this will take care of it.

[Stella]

We'll never be sick of updates. We are all going through this with you. 

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Just reading this discussion about Ava. I am hoping the Panacur helps. So sorry Ava and you are going through all of this stuff and I hope something helps soon.