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Old December 28th, 2013, 04:09 PM
Chris7 Chris7 is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: California, CA
Posts: 5
Sorry for the lag and thanks for the kind words and tips. It’s been really great getting to write/talk things out. I feel like it gives me a chance to think things through, very therapeutic.

Got the results from the Ultra Sound late last night. Luckily, she does not have a growth/mass around her liver or pancreas. However, the ultra sound did show an enlarged liver and a “very inflamed pancreas”. They still took cell samples from her liver to test for cancer or any other reason why it may be enlarged. Should get results back today or Sunday. Vet explained that it may just be enlarged from the pancreatitis or we may just never find out.

As of now they are diagnosing this as a severe pancreatitis case. Treatment will continue with IV, Pain Med and Feeding Tube, if she continues to refuse food. Vet said that there wasn’t much more we could do to treat it.

The great news is that she did look a lot better last night. She was really drugged up from the ultra sound but she slowly started to come down and act more alert. They brought her in on a cart still, but did say that she had actually gotten up on her own once and took a couple of steps around her cage. She was still refusing food – as a result she had a feeding tube inserted that seemed to cause her a lot of discomfort, but once again when I offered her food in the visiting room she ate up an entire can. This morning on the update call the vet said that she looked even better than yesterday – had actually started eating a bit on her own and had gotten up a couple of more times. They want to keep her another night to wane her off the high dosage of pain meds she’s on and to see if she keeps eating. I of course want to bring her home as soon as possible – (1) because I think she wants to be home and (2) because of the amount of money it costs to keep them hospitalized (probably an additional $800 a night). I’m leaning towards letting her stay the extra night, but will ask again if its possible she come home this afternoon.

Ultimately, I am hesitantly optimistic that she can get back to her normal self – she’s shown great improvement. I am very happy that we decided to give her a chance to recover. However, I am scared to death of another severe pancreatitis flare up – as next time I probably won’t be able to shell out another $5,000 to $6,000 to keep her hospitalized. Also, this attack must have taken a lot out of her – she really looked like she was ready to leave us. I’m hoping that since we have ruled out a mass and hopefully cancer when we get the results from her liver back, that if it happens next time it can be treated as chronic pancreatitis (i.e.: pain killers, IV, and anti-nausea meds) at a local vet – without the need to run the expensive tests to confirm it (i.e.: Blood, x-rays, and ultrasound). Nevertheless, things are certainly starting to look up.

Thanks again for the feedback. Any suggestions on food (I know it should be low fat – any ideas on brands or home cooked recipes would be much welcomed) or questions to ask the vet later today when I go see her would be great.
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