Update on Khia

Khia didn’t eat at all yesterday. By evening, she had diarrhea with blood in it.

She threw up at midnight and again at 5:30 this morning.

Mom had her at the vet as soon as they opened at 8:00.

Mom laying on the floor with Khia because she started trembling .

 

Dr. L didn’t think the Deramaxx was the issue as it has never caused problems before. X-rays indicated that there wasn’t a blockage, however there was an area of concern and Dr.L couldn’t tell if it was just a weird angle of the liver that she was seeing or something else. The concerning area seemed to coincide with the lump that is disturbing mom.

Blood work revealed the following:

• Normal WBC
• Low RBC
• No pancreatitis
• Liver #s higher than normal
• High protein levels
• EXTREMELY low platelet count – the normal low is 148, she is at 16.

Dr. L thought perhaps the machine that reads the blood was giving an error because sometimes there are the proper number of platelets but they stick together. So, she had someone review a blood sample manually under a microscope. The result: extremely low platelet count.

Possible causes of the symptoms, weird spot in the X-ray and the low platelet count:

• An organ (namely liver or spleen) that was bleeding and has since stopped
• An organ that is actively bleeding
• The big “C” (Dr. L didn’t say this…research does.)

Dr. L gave Mom 2 options:

1. Treat Khia’s symptomatically and see if she improves
2. Go to the specialist for an ultrasound. (Dr. L said their ultrasound is crappy and only good for finding the bladder to get urine samples. Mom appreciated her honesty.)

Mom said she wanted to start antibiotics and nausea medication for today and that she would take Khia to the specialist tomorrow.

Dr. L gave Khia an injection of Reglan for nausea and sent mom home with metranidazole for the diarrhea and a pill to give Khia 30 mins before she eats for the next few days to prevent nausea. Khia still had her appointment scheduled for Monday at 4:00 and Dr. L said to keep it so she could do a follow-up. Dr. L also put Khia on tramadol for pain in place of the Deramaxx and placed her on a bland diet for 3-5 days. Mom paid the vet’s monthly mortgage payment and left.

Mom got Khia home and she and Dad made Khia some chicken and rice. They gave her 1/2 cup to start with since it was her 1st time eating in so long. She kept it all down!

Mom was super happy about Khia eating but was still very worried – Khia’s unknown issue and then of course, the financial aspect. It’s been a rough month financially between Mya’s last illness and now this.

As Mom was getting ready to go to work, she got a call from Dr. L. – weirdly enough, a sales rep was in the office to do an ultrasound demo and they needed an abdominal patient. She said if Mom could bring her back, the ultrasound could be done for free since it’s a demo!!! Mom and Dad ran out of the house with Khia.

The way this ultrasound whirlygig works is that all of the info gets transmitted to a radiography lab and the lab sends back the results in 4-5 hours. Unfortunately, Dr. L was getting ready to leave for the day and she is off tomorrow. She said that if Khia isn’t doing well in the meantime, we were more than welcome to call tomorrow to speak with one of the other 2 doctor’s that were in on the demo about the results, or if she really goes downhill, to get her to the specialist. Otherwise, we will hear from her when she’s back in the office on Saturday. Mom’s okay with this plan. It saved her $300!!!!

Thank you all for your love and positive thoughts that you have left. You guys are the greatest!

Another thank you to Dr. L for making sure Khia was comfortable when she came in and found out Khia started trembling. She was there for 3 1/2 hours this morning and then 2 hours this afternoon!!! They certainly treated her like the queen she is.