Realizing Something Was Wrong

Perfection is like the air coming off the waves of the ocean.  All your senses tell you that it’s there, right in front of your nose, but you fail to see it.  I suffer from this blindness from time to time.  Like many of us, I take for granted that things in my life are perfect.  I’m in reasonably good health, have a well-paying job, enjoy hobbies, I’m surrounded by a good friends, and most of all, I have my dogs.  But on October 4^th, 2016, I saw the initial signs that life would offer the fullness of opportunities, and as part of that, the struggles that awake us from the denial that all things must end.

I got the call that something was wrong at home.  The oldest dog, Logan, had accidents all throughout the house.  He was also nauseated and didn’t want to eat.  We always joked that the day Logan didn’t eat was the day he went down.  He’s a Ridgeback after-all, and food is what they live for.

I immediately called our vet, who was in surgery that day.  Tuesday is surgery day, so of course this happened on a Tuesday.  Nevertheless, I explained the symptoms to the technician and he spoke with our vet.  I have the fortune of finding the best medical help at times when I need it most.  Our vet knew this was extremely out of the ordinary, and so he found time in his busy schedule to squeeze us in. 

In situations like these, one doesn’t expect to get clarity on the issue.  The medical model is premised upon treating the symptoms first and restoring quality of life.  Diagnosis comes later.  So we started treatment for the GI issues and nausea.  It helped, and by the next day Logan was eating again. 

Since he was doing so well, we decided to continue on with the plans to travel to Ohio for the Ridgeback Specialty.  I had entered Logan in an agility competition, but was reluctant to run him.  Over the week he had lost some weight, namely because I had him on a bland diet for the GI issues, and also because I was concerned that something serious was causing this. 

On one of the walks in Ohio, he ate something off the ground, and it set off another attack of the same symptoms.  Thus we found ourselves two days before the agility competition trying to find a vet with the anti-nausea medicine we needed.  Again, success, but now I was certain we had an underlying cause that needed to be diagnosed.

At this point, I only had my research.  What could cause these symptoms, including his elevated ALT blood levels?  Last year, August 2015, he showed symptoms of Ehrlichiosis.  He also had elevated ALT levels at that time.  Research confirmed that tick diseases can lead to GI upset and nausea, so I was hopeful that maybe this was the cause.  That said, I suspected the liver had an issue, and began to adjust his diet to low ammonia producing proteins (diary, eggs, chicken), and adding rice and oatmeal to limit copper toxicity.  I found Jean Dodds’s blog on diets for liver disease to be a valuable resource.

In short, treating the symptoms allowed Logan to run agility at the Specialty.  He ran with the heart of a lion and placed 1^st in his class.  It’s hard to imagine that a dying dog could achieve such a feat, and yet, I would come to discover that this is in fact what had happened.