Jim is having some medical issues. He has had some stomach problems since I've known him. It was worse when we lived in Michigan (2003-2004) and they tested him for gallbladder problems (ultrasound and hidascan both came back fine). It eased up but now it's back with a vengeance. He has pain (but not overly severe pain), nausea, etc. He's eating a fraction of what he used to because he is just tired of being nauseous all the time. They did an ultrasound and his gallbladder looked fine. He had a hidascan last week (or the week before...can't remember) and it was fine. So here we go again. They say nothing's wrong, he swears something is wrong. Then to top it off when we were at the vet yesterday he was seconds away from passing out. The vet was giving us some instructions for Portia (more on that in a bit) and Jim goes, "Something's not right here guys" and so we looked up and Jim was white as could be and obviously something was wrong. The dr was talking to him trying to get him to sit down on a bench but Jim wasn't responding. The dr was able to practically push him onto the bench. When Jim came back around he said he was just standing there and he flushed and got clammy so he took a step back to look around and see where the nearest bathroom was. And that's when his eyesight started going black and he couldn't hear anything. He said it felt like he had ear plugs in and he never saw the dr when he got in front of him and was trying to get him to sit down. Soooo we have no idea what caused him to almost pass out but obviously something is wrong. I'm not letting him play hockey until they figure it out so he's not happy right now. LOL!!! Hopefully they find something soon.
And onto the other issue...Saturday night we all went to sleep and everyone was good (minus Jim). Sunday morning when we got up Portia had redness around her eyes and mouth. Normally it's really light pink when she first wakes up and as she goes through the day and gets tired it gets a little red. Well this was really dark, ruby red...We've never seen anything like it before. So we figure maybe it's an allergy or something and we'll just keep an eye on it. Oh wait, back up a minute...She is being treated for plasmacytic stomatitis also...it's a disease that attacks her gums and the enamel on her teeth. She had a tooth that the root was exposed on that was pulled awhile back and she has always had REALLY (and I mean REALLY) bad breath. We finally found out that it was this disease and the smell was blood pooling in her gums and rotting. Isn't that NASTY?! Anyways, as it gets bad she has to go on Prednisone to take the swelling down and that will last for a month or two and then it will come back. It's a vicious cycle but the only other option is to have all of her teeth pulled (no lie...I'm sure a toothless dog is really going to scare an intruder away, huh?). Ok, so she's been on prednisone for 9 days now (as of Sunday). We thought maybe it was a reaction to the meds, but surely it would've shown up before day 9! About an hour later Jim brought her upstairs and the front half of her stomach was all red now. Great, but we still figure it's probably just an irritation so we'll just keep an eye on it. Besides, it's Sunday and our regular vet is open. The only other option is the ER vet and we really didn't want to have to deal with that. So now it's about 11 and I'm sitting on the couch, I look over at Portia and I see this lump on her chest. WHAT?!? It's about the size of a golf ball. So I freak out and Jim looks at it and we decide we need to get her in to the ER. I get around and we take her there around 12:30 and by then it's the size of a tennis ball. The ER vet said she really had no idea. Thought it kindof looked like a rattlesnake bite reaction (which Jim said is impossible, it's too cold for snakes now...He might've been saying that because he knows if there WAS a snake around the house I would never go outside again.) The ER vet called K-State's Vet Hospital for a consult because she was stumped (just our luck. Really, we always have the odd situations). They were unsure without seeing her and were going to consult with the other vets there and see what they thought). In the meantime, they gave Portia a really high dosage of Benadryl. While they were giving her the injection I looked at her stomach and saw more lumps on her stomach. Those were a little different though. The chest lump was hard (but it did not bother he when we touched it) and the stomach ones were really loose and jiggly. The vet wanted us to stick around for 30 minutes to an hour. The dosage was high enough that we should see some improvement in that time. Here's pictures while we waited.
The vet finally came back out and said K-State called back and they really didn't know what the problem was. They said their best guess would be to treat her with some more steroids. The vet did not want to do that in case Prednisone was part of the problem. The Bendadryl did not help which stumped her so she sent us home with instructions to keep giving her Benadryl every 6 hours and to see our regular vet in the morning. She had no idea what else to do.So, Monday morning we take her to our regular vet. He took one look and her and goes, "Oh my goodness." By this time, she had a jiggly lump on one leg, the redness had spread to the rest of her stomach, and the chest lump was the size of a baseball. He examined her and the lump on her chest was pretty tender so she yelped a little. He was stumped and said we might send her to K-State to see if they could find something. I was upset at that since our previous two dogs have had something wrong with them that they had to be sent to K-State and put to sleep because it was something major. Ugh! So I asked him to please try something first because I really did not want to have to go that route again. He put a needle into her chest lump and drew out whatever was in it. It ended up being pus and assured me that of all the scenarios, this was the best possible one. Yay! He wanted me to leave her there for the day and they would drain the abscess on her chest and we would go from there.
Jim and I picked her up Monday night and the vet said when they shaved her around the abscess, they could see a bullseye and in the middle of it was black, necrotic skin. He said they have never seen a spider bite on a dog, but this is what they think it would look like. So we are going with that as the probable cause. If we had let it go another day it would've "popped" and turned into an open wound. GROSS! Anyways, when they brought her out, her redness had gone down considerably and it appears that the spider bite was the cause of everything. The abscess had a ton of pus in it and it was all infected. The drained out a whole lot and put a tube through the abscess to keep it open and not heal itself. This lets it continue draining. She was all bandaged up but was able to come home.
You can see the gauze peeking out of the bottom of the bandage (it kind of looks like a shirt but it's similar to an ace bandage type thing wrapped all around her). By Tuesday morning, the gauze was soaked through with drainage so we had to take her back to the vet to change out the bandage. It looks like we'll have to do that everyday until it clears up. They seemed to think that it wouldn't take too long to fully drain and hopefully by Monday we can pull the tube out. Fingers crossed! She is on a heavy, heavy antibiotic to try and beat the infection and her normal demeanor is starting to return. Monday night was a difficult one because she has trouble getting comfortable and I think she was in pain so on Tuesday the vet did send some pain medication home with her so that should help her get comfortable. This morning (Wednesday) she was going up and down stairs and the redness was lighter yet again. So we are definitely seeing improvement.
Needless to say, I called our exterminators (we are on a quarterly plan) and scheduled them to come out again. They sprayed in August but obviously we have some spiders in the house! I am assuming that since it's getting cold they are all starting to come in from outdoors, but I definitely don't want this to happen again.
So, there you have it. Drama in our life continues. I hope that we are able to find out what's going on with Jim soon. He feels okay today but I don't want another episode like yesterday! Pray for us...or pray for me...two sickies in my house is two too many! :)
