This is about the health of my Bichon Frise, Sooty, who after a very shaky start, has had a very trouble free life. With one exception.... when builders were at my house for some serious construction work.
About three years ago, Sooty became very unwell over a short period of time. She was off her food and extremely lethargic with a terrific thirst. I took her to the vet who immediately performed an examination and did various other tests including taking Sooty's blood. She put her on antibiotics and sent us on our way with a follow up appointment due in a few days.
She was still very unwell despite the medication and when we returned to the vet, she had the results of her tests. A liver function test was the main cause for concern and Sooty's levels were high. We were given specific drugs to give to her and were told to return for another liver function test which we did. Her levels were spiralling dangerously. The vet explained that she was far too poorly to have exploratory surgery and referred us to an expert at a vetinary hospital.
At the hospital she was given an ultra sound scan and the specialist examined the results and told us that her liver was 95% affected by whatever was causing this problem. She recommended a liver biopsy which in itself was very risky and came with the possibility that she wouldn't survive the procedure. We had no alternative but to consent to it, because as they explained, without it she wouldn't survive anyway. We left her at the hospital and walked into town to busy ourselves for the four long hours that they advised us it would take to get results.
When the call finally came, we were ecstatic just to know that she had survived the procedure and was ready to be picked up. The consultant informed us that her liver was almost completely diseased and they didn't have a clue what was causing it. Her care was now transferred back to the original vet in our local vetinary surgery.
Sooty's treatment was a continuation of the original drugs that were prescribed along with regular liver function checks.
At the time all of this was going on, we had builders in performing major renovations to our house. So extensive were the renovations, that we had 13 walls knocked down. It was actually our vet, who knew about our renovations, who was intrigued and asked the question "Is it at all possible that she has been licking any cement dust or anything lying around the house?" We realised instantly. We had stopped her from licking building dust on the floor. Could this be the problem?
Although she hadn't had free access to any of the rooms that were being worked on there was building dust around the house. Fortunately by this time, the work had finished and gradually her liver function test results started to drop to a more acceptable level.
Amazingly her results were soon normal again. Because the liver regenerates, the moment we took away the cause of the problem, the tiny piece of unaffected liver started to regenerate again until her liver was normal again.
If the vet hadn't realised what was causing this, we may never have known that the symptoms were that of poisoning.
If you have builders in - be careful, be vigilant and keep your dogs out of the way!
This is a fair comment though unfortunately our dog licks everything and we are forever stopping her, the floor of our house during building work was no exception. We certainly didn't allow her near the work itself but the real problem was that building dust was in places that we weren't aware of ourselves, so managing this was a real nightmare.
We were naive thinking that we could live in a safe area of the house during this amount of work and would never do it again. For our sake and our dogs.
Elaine it came out wrong because certaily we all afll short in that regard, even with our kids. I just meant that we need ot be more diligent. My apologies for that rather direct statement. It just shows we are human.
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