I need some advice on how to handle a situation concerning my yorkie dog. Took her to the vet because she was sleeping alot n just wasnt herself. Wouldnt play n doesnt want to be bothered n snaps at her sister (Gabbi) when she tries to get Zazzi to play. What the vet is telling us is that its going to be Zazzis life long treatment costing a lot of money that we dont have... But Zazzi is a very precious member of our family... Below is the email we got from the vet... feedback would be appreciated very much. Thank you. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Here are the results from Zazzies blood work - she has a severe, non-regenerative anemia. To give you the numbers, I will list Zazzies number followed by the normal range in parentheses. Overall white blood cell count = 4.4 (4.9-17.6) Hematocrit or concentration of red blood cells = 13 (38.3-56.5) Platelets = 101 (143-448) Reticulocyte count is what we look at to see if there is regeneration (or the body trying to make more cells) = 35, to see a mild response of the bone marrow we would want that number to be higher than 35. So, with all of this information I am very concerned that there are not enough red blood cells (anemia) and white blood cells. Both of these mainly start in the bone marrow - so there could be a primary bone marrow issue. Another possibility is that Zazzies immune system is attacking her own cells (some times the immune system gets confused and sees its own cells as bad and destroys them). The biggest concern that I have is that with how low Zazzies hematocrit is (13) - she is a candidate for a blood transfusion. This transfusion is something that you would have to take Zazzie to a specialist for - and that is going to be very expensive (several hundreds of dollars). The other option is to try to manage her with steroids and recheck blood work in this office - this is less ideal but would be trying to do something. This second option is still going to be costly with recheck examinations, CBCs and medications. Overall Zazzies prognosis is fair to poor, unfortunately. It is better if she is able to go to the specialist to get started on treatment. But dogs with this issue, unfortunately, have a 50-75% survival prognosis despite treatment. Sometimes we can get the disease under control and a dog will be able to go off of meds - but often dogs require lifelong therapy of some sort. If you would like to go to the specialist - I would recommend Blue Pearl Vet Specialist. If you would like to start here, let me know and I will get steroids set up for you to pick up and Zazzie will have to be rechecked and have a CBC drawn in 2 weeks. I am sorry for the bad news! If you have any questions that I may answer to help you make a decision on how to proceed, please let me know.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 18:07:11 +0000
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