Richie

Unfortunately yesterday afternoon Millie contacted me worried about Richie. He is about 10 days out from having surgery for intussusseption and he had been doing great. He was playing like a pup eating and drinking and seemingly recovering. Yesterday she said he had a slightly distended abdomen, threw up his breakfast and she was worried. We sent her off to the ER with them and the concern was valid. The good news is that he does have platelets now before he had none sick with parasites, and ehrlichia and being emaciated its been a battle for this little man. The bad news is that he did have intussusception again. We sent him back to surgery again last night to repair the intestines. He is stable but obviously this is a big concern and if it continues to happen we will have to make a hard decision. He is transferring over to Animal diagnostic Clinic this morning so we will get some info from Dr. Rolfe or Dr. Bronstadt on how they see this and where do we go from here.

Yesterday Richie was taken to surgery, he had two areas in his intestines where he had intussuseption, Dr. Wilkins surgically repaired one of them and physically manipulated the other one to get it back into place. This has apparently occurred due to the mass quantity of various kinds of worms that all of them had, Joanie, Mama Marion and Richie. We have also discovered that both Joanie and Richie are ehrlichia positive that they got from their mom while in the womb. Life has been tough for all three of them but Richie has had the toughest time. Dr. Rolfe is very happy with how well he is doing post op but he will remain in the hospital for now.

We have been in crisis mode with Richie since yesterday. We ended up having to take him to the ER, we just didn’t like what we were seeing and he will not eat enough to make us feel satisfied. Yesterday they did an ultrasound on him and Dr. Rolfe discovered that he has intususseption and will need surgery. We have other issues with him that we don’t yet understand, his spleen doesn’t look right and neither do his lymph nodes. They have given him plasma already once and transfused him and are taking him to surgery now because we just don’t have a choice. He has also developed a cough and they cannot give us any promises that he will survive the surgery but we can’t not do it, he won’t survive without it either. They have blood and plasma on hand and are taking him into surgery now.

We couldn’t keep Richie out of the hospital. He’s just not eating well enough. His sister Joanie is doing better than he is, so we hospitalized him this morning with fluids and plasma. We will wait and see if they want to transfuse him and are getting chest rads as well.

Richie and Joanie were roaming the streets and then ultimately found taking up a safe spot in a warehouse with their Mama Marion. They have not been doing well, so sick with parasites and very low albumin and hematocrit. Dr. Reno had us give them canned recovery which is a very high calorie dog food for instances like this. Their appetite has been poor and she said if we cannot get them to eat they will need to be hospitalized and transfused. Happily, the captains offered them that food and they ate it all up and are doing better and better each day. They are very lucky to be alive and it’s wonderful to see them safe, clean and on the road to recovery.