Friday, July 10, 2009
A Rumbly Tummy
About 2 weeks ago, Sol began having a "rumbly tummy". Just out of the blue you would hear sounds like her stomach was growling but (yikes) she wasn't hungry. She began pacing and couldn't get settled to rest. She only wanted to eat grass. She did end up throwing up 2 times but her poopy was okay. After she she vomited, she seemed to feel better. And while it only lasted about a day, we ended up taking her to the vet. He put her on Flagyl and Pepcid AC and we began a low residue prescription diet (Iams canned). She seemed to be doing just fine and we chalked it up to little Solsey baby having a "bug" in her tummy.
She finished her week on the special diet, took all her meds and we weaned her back to her regular (home cooked) food. Well, that lasted only about 3 days before her symptoms began to re-appear. Her stomach began churning again. Since it began exactly the same way, we decided to take her right away before she ended up throwing up and/or having a loose stool.
So, off to the vet we went again today. She's back on the Flagyl, the Pepcid, her special canned Iams (low residue variety) and a chewy called ProstoraMax (which helps build and maintain a healthy digestive system). He also wanted her to have an Immodium (one pill with 1/2 when we got home and the other 1/2 eight hours later.) The main problem, though, was that while she was prescribed all these medications, she had no interest in eating. (Now, you can imagine, a Pug with no appetite?! Does such an animal exist?) Well, fortunately, we took great strides in helping her eat. It was quite messy but we ended up hand feeding her wet dog food. (Ew.) She managed to down all her meds and by her later night "dinner" she was again pug-excited to eat.
As for the long term diagnosis....? Well, it is sort of a wait and see type of issue right now. The vet tech drew blood at the vet's recommendation and our satisfaction. The vet said that the first bout probably just wasn't treated long enough and that we probably weaned her back to her old food a little too quickly. Sol is on the meds for 2 weeks now instead of one week. Fearful as usual as we are with Sol, our minds wondered to the "what if its cancer again?" worry. We spoke to the vet in depth about this concern. He cautioned that it was too early for us to be paranoid. (But hey, for us, its never too early! Ha!) He did say that he will pay close attention to her bloodwork and compare from previous drawings. While he was optimistic that there was nothing to get overly concerned with yet, he did caution us about possible maladies that we would further explore if the current plan to heal baby Sol doesn't pan out. We are trying to stay open minded in all of this. Yet this is probably the hardest of all things to deal with for us because we have no idea about her history. (Heck, while we're pretty sure she is at least spayed, we really don't even know that for sure.) But she has only been in the family about 7 months now and while it feels like we have had her forever, she had so much life before us that we know nothing about. We just want to do the right thing by her and keep her well and have her live out her golden years as sweet and lovingly as possible.
Get well sweet Solsey.
We’re all sending you positive thoughts and prayers. Hopefully, it’s just a tummy bug. We all love you! Sending you pug hugs and kisses, precious Sol!
Kimberly
07/10/2009
Get Well Soon Sweet Sol. Here at Casa de Pug we send you lots and lots of pug snorts, snuggles and kisses to help you on the way to recovery. Your humans love you very much and are taking such good care of you. No worries sweet pug, you are in the best of care and in a home full of love.