I've put off posting about this so far as I wanted to know what was really going on but Tills could do with some magic COL good thoughts... I noticed a while back that she was losing weight and thought it was time of year, her being out working etc. so I upped her food and was giving her tripe, rabbit, lamb etc. but it didn't make any difference, she was losing all her muscle tone and starting to look very ribby which is not like Tills at all and then she started with diarrohea and vomiting. I took her to the vet and she had blood tests but they were inconclusive, they didn't show any signs of infection but she wasn't improving any so last week she went in for further blood tests, x-rays and an ultrasound. She had gone from her normal weight of 17.2kg to 14.8kg last week which is not good for a Cocker of Tilly's size and today she was 14.6kg, she is very thin.
The ultrasound last week showed, in the vet's words, that her stomach and bowel was 'a bit of a mess'. Normal thickness of bowel for a dog Tilly's size is 2mm, hers is 6mm, very inflamed and showing scarring. The provisional but 99% certain diagnosis from last week was that she has progressive eosinophilic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) which basically stops her absorbing any nutrition from her food, not to put too fine a point on it if she kept going the way she was she'd have starved no matter how much I'd fed her.
We were sent home with a week's supply of Hill's d/d food and she was supposed to go back to the vet on Thursday once all the lab results were back and to arrange to have biopsies taken as that is the only way to absolutely confirm an IBD diagnosis (hence the 'provisional' above). However, she has become quite ill since last week, I've been sleeping downstairs and have been up with her at least 4 or 5 times every night as she's desperate to get out, she's lost more weight, her coat looks dreadful (worse than usual), and she's so tired, she's just not Tilly at all, she's been sleeping maybe 22 hours a day for the last few days. I spoke to her vet yesterday and he brought her appointment forward so I took her into the vet hospital first thing this morning and they have kept her in there, she has been put on a drip and is going to be having surgery tomorrow to take biopsies from her bowel, intestines and liver and she's not going to be home again until Thursday at the earliest.
So that is the story so far
I'm worried sick about my girl, I have been for weeks now, I honestly don't know what the outcome of this is going to be. She's quite weak and there is a fairly hefty risk to her from both the GA tomorrow and the biopsy taking itself as her intestinal walls are not normal and with the vet cutting holes in them there is a risk of leakage and contamination of the peritoneum. There's also a chance they're going to find something like lymphoma once they open her up but there's no point dwelling on that until I know, it is probably more likely that it is IBD as the vet thinks.
IBD isn't curable and it is progressive but there is a possibility of managing it at least for a while with diet and a combination of long-term high-dose steroids, antibiotics and immunosuppressant drugs, all of which have their own side effects. There are several types of IBD and they think from her symptoms that she has the eosinophilic type which is the most severe, the treatment would be high-dose Prednisolone with all its possible side effects plus a strong immunosuppressant such as Azathioprine - it's often used as a chemotherapy drug and she'd have to have a complete blood count every two weeks while on it. If these are her only options I am going to have to weigh up the risks and benefits very carefully as to me her quality of life is the most important thing. If anyone has any experience of or advice about these drugs, or of IBD, I'd very much appreciate it.
I have to add also, Helen, Jo (Crazy Cocker Gang) and Elisa have been brilliant over the last few weeks and I can't thank them enough
