Good-ish update on my Katy!

Quick update, today (Wednesday) she ate just a smidge more than yesterday :-D By my count she ate a little over 300 calories in food, plus a little more in treats.

For whatever reason, though, this time she mostly snubbed the FreshPet kibble and went crazy for the multi protein pate stuff! LOL

I'd bet you all $1 that tomorrow she snubs the multi protein pate, because it seems like that's been her routine!! But that makes me worry that she's getting nauseous overnight and blaming the nausea on the food that she just had. Which I've done myself; I LOVED the red hot Cheetos, then one day I got really sick after eating some and haven't wanted them since. But if that's the case then I'm not sure how to combat the night time nausea, when she refused to eat until 9pm!
 
I hope y'all are having an amazing Christmas!

Katy slept in a little, but gave me a little "ruff!" when she woke up :-) She didn't want any eggs but nibbled some of my girlfriend's bacon (I told her not to give her bacon because it's not good for her tummy, but you know how that goes! LOL). So at least she has a little bit of interest!
 
Well, today sucked :-(

This was my first day off of Entyce. I made French toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon for breakfast, and Katy sat at our feet begging for nibbles! We gave her a few small bites of bacon (which I know isn't good for her so we kept it small), which she loved, but then I offered a bit of scrambled egg and she spat it out.

But that was pretty much all that she ate, all day! I got her to eat a single cracker at around 7pm, I think, but she refused the FreshPet kibble that she loved on Monday but hated on Tuesday, she refused the pate that she'd loved on Tuesday, she even snubbed the baby food!

I kept trying every 30 minutes, but by 11pm she hadn't eaten anything since those tiny nibs of bacon.

At 11pm I scrambled an egg for her, and she ate about 75% of it. But still refused anything else.

So at 11:30pm, I gave up and started forcing baby food. "Forcing" isn't really right; I have a syringe, so I filled it and placed it between her closed teeth, squirting a little at a time into her mouth as she swallowed it.

It took about an hour, but I got her to eat a jar of pureed beef and a jar of pureed sweet potatoes. All combined, that put her at about 200 calories for the day, but 190 of that was close to midnight!

All I know to do is start forcing about 70 calories of baby food in her, four or five times a day :'-(
 
This may be a silly question if your vet has given you specific instructions, but I'm wondering why you took her off the Entyce. It's been a few years since I used an appetitie stimulant for Barkley, but I do recall that we gave it every day indefinitely. I also recall that we gave it with Cerenia...they can both be used together.

Cerenia is a great med that is very benign and can be used daily when needed. I gave it to Checkers every day for more than a year (15 mg). A combo of the two might be helpful for Katy.
 
There's no such thing as a silly question (y)

We never saw an improvement from the Cerenia or Entyce, and thought they could have been having negative affects instead! She was eating better before we gave her either of them.

I had read that said that "almost 7 out of 10 dog owners reported increased appetite in just four days of treatment, compared to 4.5 out of 10 control dogs", and that possible side effects included nausea and lack of energy. I'm not sure what they mean by "almost 7" (is 6.1 the same as "almost 7"?), but "almost 7 out of 10" compared to 4.5 out of 10 with a placebo didn't seem like a significant improvement, and made us think that Katy might be one of those dogs that it didn't help. And it seemed like she could be having more nausea than before.

I couldn't find studies on Cerenia, but their paperwork says that a study on motion sickness found that 93% of dogs would not vomit while on Cerenia versus 48% with a placebo. Since Katy's presumed nausea seems to be more from anemia and/or bile, I have no idea how effective it would have been expected to be.

The original plan with the Entyce was go try it for 4 days, then use it as needed after that. Katy's regular vet was out of the office this week, though (probably an out-of-state Christmas trip, I know her kids live in another state), so there really wasn't anyone to talk to about it. Another vet in the office suggested that we pause it, though, and revisit the plan with our regular vet when she's back.
 
I was laying in bed last night and realized that I was making a silly mistake with the baby food. So today, I instead took her daily serving of Farmer's Dog and pureed it in a blender with 1 cup of water. Then I separated it into 4 jars, and used the syringe to squirt one of those servings into her mouth.

It took about an hour to get her to eat the whole thing, but she did it! And now she's sleeping at my feet just fine.

The plan is to offer her some food every 3 hours or so, and if she refuses then I'll resort to the syringe. I'm working under the theory that 400 calories forced is better than 200 calories voluntarily, and a little at a time might help combat her nausea better than all of it at once.
 
Really bad day, y'all :'-(

Following from my last post, on Thursday I "force" fed her 4 small meals of the pureed Farmer's Dog. I don't know that "force" is the right word, I just used a syringe and squirted a little in her mouth, she would swallow, then I would do more. I was able to get the full day's serving in her!

Friday morning, she woke up feeling pretty good! She barked to wake me up and had more energy than she'd had in awhile! Even had a nice solid bowel movement. She still wouldn't eat, but that's OK, I just fed her a small meal like I did on Thursday. And still had to force the Keppra and Prednisone.

All was well until about 6pm. She was laying on her side and threw up without warning! Or "regurgitated" is more accurate, as it was all undigested food and treats from Thursday, including the undigested Keppra from that morning!

I thought she would feel better, but she was super wimpy all day. She finally had a bowel movement at around 11pm, but this time it was maybe 75% solid; an obvious setback!

Then Saturday morning, she was even weaker than before! She could barely stand to pee, and as I was trying to get her to eat I saw that her gums were solid white! They were light pink the last time I'd looked, so that was a somewhat sudden decline.

I rushed her to the emergency vet (1 1/2 hours away, so "rushed" is subjective, I guess). They put her in an oxygen tent and ran blood work, this time her hematocrit numbers were down to 10%!! So much, much worse than her blood work on Dec 6.

They did an X-ray, and the vet said that her spleen looked unusual and it MIGHT be a tumor. But it could also just be inflammation. She also appears to have inflammation in her pancreas.

I told them to do whatever they had to do to help her, cost be danged. But I tried to explain to the vet between sobs that my goal is to do what's best for Katy... if she's willing to fight then so am I, but only if there's a chance that she'll pull through and have a good quality of life. If she's only going to pull through but have no quality of life until she dies, that's just torture.

After that they sent me home, and have been keeping in touch with updates. They did a blood transfusion (which they told me they would do before I left), and as of 1am she seems to have done well with that. The vet tech couldn't tell me her hematocrit numbers after the transfusion, but the doctor will call me tomorrow with better information. But right now the plan is to keep her in the oxygen tent until Monday, and then they'll do an ultrasound to see what's going on with her spleen.

I'm bracing myself for there to be a tumor on her spleen, and the I'll have to make the hard decision of whether to do nothing (average life expectancy with a tumor is 1 week to 3 months, so "nothing" would probably mean "euthanize") or a surgery ($3500-5000, but would an almost 14 year old survive the surgery?).
 
I’m so sorry to see this update. I feel so sad for you and Katy. You’ve gone above and beyond for her, but sometimes we know it won’t help. It’s good that she’s in the hospital where they can treat and monitor her, and you know if anyone can help her, they can. I know what the wait is like to hear updates, it’s murder. Sending prayers for your precious girl and hugs to you. :hugsThanks for keeping us posted.
 
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