Illness and starting again

I've not been ill, poor Barney has :( Chris and I went on holiday for a week and left Barney in kennels, when we collected him, he was a different dog!
Standing all hunched up, wouldn't walk far, couldn't jump into the car or even onto the sofa!
We took him to the vets and he had a high temp too. The hunching was due to pain in his spinal/abdominal area (couldn't tell which at that point). He was put straight on antibiotics and we thought that'd be it, fixed.

No.

For the next 2 weeks he was in and out of our vets as his temperature kept getting dangerously high. The anti-b's obviously weren't working, and x-rays and ultrasound scans showed nothing at all. He was on a special skin patch for the pain which is a highly controlled narcotic drug, it just wasnt getting any better. So the decision was made to refer him to a specialist in Swindon, an hour away.

Once in Swindon the idea of a MRI scan came up. Thankfully the vet advised against it as we'd already used up £2000 of our £4000 insurance, and a scan would cost at least £1800, leaving nothing to treat him with! So he underwent CT scanning, had spinal taps which were sent to Paris for testing, and a whole raft of other in-depth tests instead. He came home a few times, but had to go back because of his temperature, once I recorded it at 41.1 degrees, his normal resting temp is 37.5!

Still nothing was showing up.

Luckily the specialist vet isn't one to give up, and so we made the scary decision to take him off antibiotics and switch to steroids. Had he had an infection this could have been fatal as the steroids would have encouraged bacteria growth.

It worked!

Just over a month after coming out of kennels his temperature was finally stable, and he began to act like Barney again. Hes bern on them 2 weeks now, and the steroids are playing havoc with his house training-they make him very thirsty, and all that water has to go somewhere ;) they have changed his personality a bit too, and so he doesn't ask to go out when he needs to go, luckily we don't have any carpet downstairs! He has also lost an incredible amount of weight, around 10kg we think. He's certainly a lot thinner than when we first adopted him. He's lost a lot of muscle too, between not walking, and the steroids being muscle wasting, he looks awful poor boy.
He is feeling 100's of times better though. He stopped having pain killers this week, and he is almost normal-Barney again. Loving his walks, eating for Britain, just a bit naughtier-he emptied my handbag all over the living room during the night, just to get to the teeny packet of chocolate buttons in the bottom! Still, so relieved he is getting better.

As for starting again, well, my walking round Middle Earth of course. I arrived in Rivendell at the beginning of my summer holiday, and I've had a good long rest now, so I think it's time to set off again for Mount Doom and get this thing done ;) Now my walking companion is up to it again, I'm sure we'll get there in no time (yeah right!)

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