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Thank you all for your thoughts and well wishes for Timber!
Thanks for the picture Goldfields -- it's good to know what the bleeding under the skin may look like. She has a shaved belly right now from her ultrasound but otherwise I don't know how you'd ever detect that on a husky!
I'm not sure how much has really changed in the end but I'm glad we talked to a specialist about it.
Basically we stay on the same track with a few modifications. From the blood work she doesn't like her response to the prednisone (not a strong enough reaction) so we switch her to another steroid and keep her on the Imuran.
We also switch her antibiotic to another potent one just in case she has some weird strain of e-coli that they can't test for. When this all started she had some loose stool so a sample has been sent off today to look for parasites and other possible infections. Although I think these things are rare but I guess it's good to rule them out as well. I have always given heartworm med so they do get de-wormed every month but I guess you never know.
She was fairly upfront that it is hard to know absolutely what is going on and all though we have tried to rule out the possibility of a tumor or cancer it can be missed. There may be something that is difficult to see on x-ray or ultrasound so we treat what we know is true which is the low platelets. That would be a diagnosis of the ITP (Immune-mediated Thrombocytopenia Purpera) and the cause for this is unknown. Some dogs respond to treatment and some do not.
We get her on the new meds and test in a week to see if there are any positive changes in her blood work.
I'm still having a really hard time with this. I am questioning everything just because I think about us possibly nearing the end of her life and I don't want to be making that more difficult for her. That being said, if it is only her immune system and the treatment can increase her platelet counts and she starts feeling better than it would be worth it to me!
This is, however just a guess right now, and that makes me pretty uncomfortable. I like to know all the answers as it makes me feel more in control of the situation and with all the unknowns I feel completely lost and worried but I suppose that is life really. There are no absolutes and I guess we just continue and hope for the best.
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