Sick as a Dog

I have now learned where that phrase comes from. Because our doggie is very sick and it's sad and scary.

Poor Mojo stopped eating and drinking the other day. Which as you all know is highly unusual for the biggest pig of them all. He'll eat ANYTHING. Well, except maybe mushrooms.

He seemed a little off on Saturday evening, but was still the life of the party and got himself tons of treats from all the guests. But Sunday we noticed he wasn't drinking his water, and then when dinner time came and went and he hadn't cleaned out his dish we knew something was up. We chalked it up to the heat and humidity and figured he'd probably eat in the middle of the night when he cooled off and got hungry. I got him to eat a ton of ice cubes from my hand too...so we were sure he was just overheated.

Monday morning we had to get up early because DBF was heading off to sea. I had heard Mojo roaming around in the middle of the night, heard him slurp from the toilet (which is odd because I've never seen him do that), but in the morning he seemed OK...just upset that daddy was leaving. So I paid attention to him all day and he still wasn't eating...not even interested in any treats and still not really slurping much from his water dish. Monday night I tried the ice again but no go. I took him for a walk to see if I could get him worked up enough to drink something...but he was very lethargic and barely made it around the block. Not good.

So I decided to give him some time on Tuesday and then I was taking him to the vet. Sure thing on Tuesday he wasn't any better and I could tell he was getting weak because of not eating....so

off to the vet we went. He was soooooo good. It's very cute, but sad at the same time because it's so not like him. He walks slow like a very old man and just lays down every chance he gets. His tail is still wagging and his tongue hung out for the car ride, but he can barely work his hind end enough to get into the car.

Anyway, vet checked him out and then recommended xrays and bloodwork. Xrays didn't show much...a light discrepancy on his liver, but nothing conclusive. The bloodwork showed all kinds of things...elevated white count, high sodium and nitrates....which could be because he's dehydrated....but also a calcium count that is off the chart... which is an indicator of lymphoma. Definitely nothing conclusive, but freaking scary. Hopefully it's actually just some sort of bacteria infection...but the only way to really tell is to let him take some antibiotics and see if he perks up, and then an ultrasound if necessary.

She gave him some subcutaneous fluids (under his skin) to get him a bit hydrated overnight, and we started him on amoxicillin just in case. I took him back today for actual IV treatment in the hopes of getting him properly hydrated. Cross you fingers that it works. After the treatment the vet will redo the bloodwork to see if his counts have lowered at all. If they have, then it's probably good news and we'll see if the antibiotics work....otherwise we'll do the ultrasound to see what else could be going on.

Ugh.

And to top this all off, DBF left on Monday for a month at sea and can't come home. How shitty is that? I'm gonna look after his best friend like he's my best friend.

Poor puppy.