New to AIHA, dog in trouble – Page 16 – Second Chance AIHA Dogs

Rick

Guest

This is a section that I have been avoiding. Just thinking about it makes me sad and mad, but I need to get it out.
“the doctors”
As you can imagine, we have seen a lot of interaction with medical professionals. From experience with human doctors I knew that the responsibility was on me to do research, ask intelligent questions, and double check all diagnoses. The mentality of “treat everything with antibiotics” has definitely crossed over from human to animal medicine, which is very frustrating. Unfortunately I am not a vet and don’t have experience with a wide range of conditions so I had to rely on the doctors for help.

First up are the techs and veterinary assistants. I am sad to say that I don’t remember any of their names. In the last bout of visits I never saw the same tech twice and let’s just say I was “distracted”.
I would say that 99% of them were very good: professional, careful, and knowledgeable. The other consistency between them was that they were able to see Brandy as “Mouse” very quickly. This gave her preferential treatment and special attention, and I can never communicate how much I appreciate that extra effort. When Brandy was at the specialty hospital I said “it’s okay, Mouse” and I could immediately see in the techs’ eyes that the name just fits, and that’s what they called her.

Now for the not so good. A high percentage of the vets I have encountered are either incompetent, lazy, or just plain don’t care about animals. I don’t need my vet to feel pain for my dog, but I expect them to try a little bit.
The bad ones aren’t worth my words, but I will mention some of the good ones.
When Brandy went blind I was referred to an animal eye specialist and Dr. S was very good. She had a small blind dog of her own that wandered around the office and was very helpful and reassuring that Brandy would be okay.
When Brandy’s regular vet refused to test her for Addison’s, Dr. S referred me to another good vet (Dr. W) who unfortunately was 40-90 minutes away. It was a bit of a pain getting all Brandy’s records sent over and the driving back and forth but at least we had the test done and samples sent off. The results came back positive for Atypical Addison’s disease and we started treatment with low dose Prednisone.

The vet that really made an impact on me was at the specialist hospital that last treated Brandy. Dr. F is an older lady who is extremely knowledgeable and super nice. On Brandy’s first visit I carried her into the lobby and one of the techs carried her back to the ER. Dr. F came out about 10 minutes later and asked “does Brandy have a problem with her eyes?”. Oh, yeah I forgot to tell them that she is blind, though I wouldn’t have expected them to notice. Dr. F spent more than an hour with me understanding Brandy’s medical history while she was getting IV fluids. I could tell right away that she perhaps cares too much and that it must be hard for her.
I met with Dr. F a couple more times while Brandy was improving and she was so happy.
She was also on when I brought Brandy in on the last night. I recall hugging her before I left to go home and give the bad news to Jennifer.
A few weeks ago we received a note from her:

“Dear Rick and Jennifer,
I wanted to express my sympathy for your loss of Brandy. She was a very special girl that won our hearts. She showed such a strong will and spirit that could only be admired.
She was so fortunate to have found such a dedicated loving family. You really did so much for her!
I know she was so loved and will be missed by you both. She will be remembered as a remarkable dog with a “big” heart.
My thoughts are with you both.
Sincerely
Dr. F”

My heart.

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Rick

Guest

“white fluff”
The trees around our house are mostly Black Cottonwoods, and on warm days between May 15th and June 15th they release their seed pods on the wind. The white fluffy seed pods come down in such a huge quantity that it literally looks like it is snowing. The seed pods get everywhere and stick around forever.
One of the symptoms of Addison’s Disease is changes to coat and skin color. When we adopted Brandy she had very short fur (1/16″) on her back and sides, but her belly was completely bald and pink. Over the next couple years her coat changed, though of course we didn’t know she had Addison’s at this point.
Her belly still remained bald but the fur on her back grew longer, coarser, and bushier. What was more interesting was the fur around her neck. It grew much thicker than everywhere else and looked like a lion’s mane. On spec that sounds like regal, however she also shed. A lot. I described it to people as “I can brush a squirrel’s worth of fur from her every day”.
Of course she also shed a lot of hair in the house and for several years we had little white tumbleweeds throughout the house.
That’s how she got the name ‘white fluff”, but it wasn’t just the hair.
I got to see Brandy’s white fluff persona every morning at our front door landing. I know that most dogs are excited about going outside, but Brandy was so ecstatic that she would almost break her tail whapping on the wall. She would also behave like a bucking bronco as soon as you tried to wrangle her leash around her neck. She did all this with a hugs smile on her face.
I said before that Brandy was an expert at getting people to do things. Often it was a very small gesture that she used to get her way.
The best was when Brandy was happy and excited and wanted to play or go out. She would stand between us and the television, stomp her feet (two at a time) and sing “roo roo roo”. It wasn’t a bark and it wasn’t a howl and it wasn’t very loud but it was exceedingly cute.
I would often tell her to get a specific toy, usually her fox, which was one of those stuffing-free toys. Brandy loved playing tug with it and would play for at least 20 minutes. When she was done playing the game was over and she would go to sleep.
One real regret I have is that I didn’t get to hear her “roo roo roo” in the 20 days after she first got sick with AIHA. She was never feeling well enough to play.
The foxy-loxy toy was stuffing-free, and that was mostly out of necessity. Brandy absolutely hated squeakers in stuffed toys. She would squeak them relentlessly until the stopped. Then she would ensure that they toy never squeaked again by gutting it of the squeaker and any internal stuffing that might get in the way. I can still picture her now with a mouthful of white stuffing from a toy. She looked almost identical to when she would “kill” the tall grass from the grassy knoll – big smile on her face.
After she went blind we bought a sophisticated stuffed toy with an electronic “squeaker” that sounded a lot like a chipmunk. Oh, how she hated it. I could only let her play with it for about 10 minutes at a time before she would destroy it.
That was white fluff.

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Rick

Guest

I agree Sheena. The best was after Brandy started to get better and the vet claimed credit.
He actually said that his referring us to the specialist hospital is what saved her. As in, I’m not a very good vet but I am good enough to find someone else who is.
This is the same vet that gave her the Penicillin that we believe triggered her AIHA, and during that visit he checked her eyes. He told me that she had a few solids in there that could develop into cataracts. I said “so…what’s the concern?”.
His answer: “it could affect her vision”. Right.

“big game”
Weimaraners were bred to hunt big game in Germany. After they ran out of deer and boar to hunt they tried to switch them over to birds (or make them all-purpose gun dogs) but the breed is mostly unsuccessful at it.
So while Ripley is “pretty” it is a bit surprising that he has retained some hunting instincts. When he and Brandy were very young we took our first vacation to a cabin. We were walking on a dirt trail with Ripley running free and Brandy on an extend-a-leash when suddenly a pair of deer appeared in front of us. We really didn’t know what to expect, but Ripley’s recall skills weren’t very good at that point so we immediately went on alert. Ripley ran directly at the deer who bounded away. The deer made two jumps along the trail before leaping vertically over a 6 foot hedge. A 6 foot hedge is higher than the 3 feet high that Ripley can detect any animal so he stopped and stood there, completely dumbfounded that his quarry had vanished into thin air.
He also very much enjoyed going to my Dad’s 5 acre hobby farm. Ripley is also a huge chicken so he would run up to the cows, barking madly then drive by and run away. His barking wasn’t angry, but more like confusion. He absolutely loved that he could make them run away though, and of course there were plenty of ready made sampler snacks on the field.
This brings us to the first trip to a cabin after Brandy went blind. Our regular cabin didn’t really have a nice open field for her to run but I found another place high in the mountains of British Columbia’s interior where there was a giant cleared field. I think it used to be for farming 100 years ago and had been nicely cleared and flattened.
The route from the cabin to the field was over a rough gravel road with sloping edges to fairly dense trees. We were very concerned about Brandy sliding off the road and smashing into a tree if we let her off the leash, so we had to stay very close to her and catch/grab her if she went astray.
On the last day Jennifer got a bright idea. Why don’t we tie the two dogs together so that the sighted dog could lead the blind dog and prevent her from running into a tree. Sounds good, right.
well, maybe not. We tied them together with a leash with about a 3 foot gap between them and started walking. At first everything looked okay as they stayed pretty much in the middle of the rough road. As we watched, Brandy started veering to the left (as she was prone to do). We didn’t try to correct her expecting Ripley to straighten her out. Within 20 steps she had left the trail and was into the trees with Ripley in tow. We were laughing so hard – Ripley is just to passive to make this idea work.
We brought them back on the road and tried again. This time they made it about 15 steps when a small deer leapt onto the rise maybe 20 feet from Ripley.
Uh-oh.
In spite of him being a pretty and passive dog, Ripley is very strong with 75lbs of mostly muscle while Brandy is a lean 40lbs.
Maybe he wouldn’t see it. Ripley isn’t very perceptive and quite often he goes into what might be called a point and when he makes us look there is nothing there.
We fully expected Ripley to bolt at the deer, dragging Brandy behind but he stood there and stared until we caught up and untied them.
I’m thinking maybe he did do his job as a guide dog and protect his sister.

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Rick

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“no, really”
I previously said that Brandy had only one other health incident between her Addison’s diagnosis and treatment and the anemia.
Yes, Cancer.
I know what you’re saying. “Come on Rick, you’re making that up.” “Is this entire story a hoax, or just a cruel joke”. And hey, I would be there right with you. Jennifer says I am part German and part Klingon for my analytical view on the world, and I am more skeptical than most.
I really hesitated to even talk about this incident since it sounds completely fantastical. The C-word is very scary to humans, but in reality it was only a minor blip in Brandy’s life. Also since her story to date is already of the most resilient dog to have ever lived, it’s not like I need to add emphasis.
Brandy has almost always had lumps and bumps on her body. I believe many were due to her being unable to digest food particularly well (and her propensity for eating whatever garbage she found) so she often got fatty lumps. Several times I that “the” vet take a look at them and he concluded that they were all fat deposits. All of her lumps tended to grow and shrink over time. I know this sounds a bit sketchy but I’m guessing most people would never have noticed. It was Brandy’s short fur and our diligence at watching her condition that made it possible.
One of the lumps made me more concerned. On the outside of her left rear thigh she had a lump that grew and shrank more than the others. It also was not as soft to the touch. Finally about four years ago I insisted that the vet take a sample and have it tested. It came back cancerous.
Of course we responded as every normal person would – sadness, hysteria, fear, crying; all that nonsense. Of course Brandy shook it off as if it were nothing.
The vet removed the lump and sent it for pathology. The result from the lab was a Mast Cell Tumor (basically skin Cancer) with clean margins. I had done a fait bit of research on MCTs beforehand and knew that this meant she was cured, and the probability of another incidence was equivalent to a dog that hadn’t had Cancer.
No problem.
She did have one complication in recovery. After two days at home looking after her I had to go out. I left her cone on and put up a baby gate so she didn’t wander. I arrived home an hour later to find her lying on her bed. I speculate that she had jumped up on the window box of our bay windows and ripped out ALL her stitches. I’m standing there looking at a very unattractive gaping hole in her skin.
On the phone to emergency, load her up and out the door. They stitch her back up with double sutures instead of the hacked up job done by her regular vet and we’re back home in no time.
The large opening combined with another symptom of Addison’s Disease – darkening of the skin – left her with a large black zigzag scar on her left thigh but really that was the extent of the evidence that it even happened.

“If she doesn’t improve tonight we’ll put her down” was what the emergency vet said on Brandy’s first AIHA crash.
Humph.
You don’t know who you are dealing with. This is Brandy-Cat and it’ll take a lot more than that to take her out.

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