It's been 9 days since Linus was treated with Interleukin. Our call this morning from Lorie said that he is getting more alert and he even picks his head up now when she comes in to get him. He's also happy to wander the yard and sniff at flowers and grass. His edema is still bad and they are considering increasing his steroids. His bloodwork showed his anemia is worse than yesterday so another transfusion may be in the works. Dr. Selting is calling NIH to see what other supportive care can be done to speed his recovery.
Yesterday, Dr. Selting indicated that NIH is very optomistic about Linus's recovery and that it will be 24 to 48 hours before things start turning around. I sure hope that is the case...
***3pm Update from Dr. Selting***
What's better:
He got up on his own when it was time to go out.
Reduced edema in right rear leg
HCT at 14000 up from 12000 this morning. (normal range 35800 to 60000)
Platelets at 52000 up from 26000 2 days ago (normal range 200000 to 500000)
Low pressure but improved from before.
What's worse:
Swelling (Edema) in front legs
Swelling in chest (not lungs so no distress).
What the plan is:
Increase Hetastarch
Increase steroids
Push food via syringe.
Possibilities: Remove leg vein cath and insert a jugular cath. This will faciliate blood draws and be less painful than leg cath at this point. Implement a feeding tube. Only done if he starts refusing syringe feeding or they can't get enough calories in him via syringe.
***7pm Update from Lorie***
Well no major breakthroughs...but Lorie said that everyone is pulling for Linus! Dr. Selting did put in an order to push the calories into him as much as possible. Lorie said that he has been lifting up his head for her and got up in his cage on his own twice today. They think that more activity and walking will help his edema so after he went outside today she walked him through the hallways, the long way around to ICU. She just wishes that his blood tests reflected the improvements in his energy level.
Lorie asked if we were able to visit again. I told her that we would consider it if we could come in the evening otherwise we couldn't come up until the weekend. She said not to let anything stop us and that she would be willing to come up in the evening if we felt like we needed to check on him. DH and I will talk about this and figure out when we can head up there.
***Important Tip....Take a video of your dog regularly! This way you can show the Vet what their normal behavior is like. Also, if you switch Vets, like we had to due to a rotation change the new Vet will have an idea of how your animal behaved prior to the onset of the injury or illness. The Vet and Vet student we are dealing with have no idea how lively Linus was when he came in because they were new to his case. I only have short videos of Linus on my phone and I so wish I had taken some better ones while he was out running in the yard.
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