Critical at Liverpool Teaching Hospital

Hi Everyone Louis’s Mum here..

So for everyone who is a Facebook friend of mine you will know we had a terrible day yesterday with Louis, for those who are not aware I’ll explain his current situation.

Yesterday (Easter Saturday) Louis got us up early as normal for his breakfast, he seemed his normal happy self, obviously he’s still not as active as he used to be but it felt like he was going to have a good day. He went out for a potter round the back garden had a big drink out of his bucket that his Dad fills up every morning, that’s an old habit from when they worked away and it was hot, and he drank so much it was easier to fill a bucket than his normal water bowl.

He came back in after clearing a couple of birds off, had his breakfast and his first set of tablets and settled down with me to watch a couple of episodes of Daredevil on Netflix, he had his new blanket over him and I gave him a brush with his red mitt, everything seemed fine. At lunchtime it was time for his next tablet and when he swallowed it he gave a little cry out, we don’t know why so John had a look in his mouth but he couldn’t see anything, so he settled back down.

I noticed his breathing seemed to be quicker than it had been so I thought he must be hot so took his blanket off, but he just looked like he didn’t have any energy, he tried to have a drink but just stared at his water, I even got him some ice cream and he wanted it but it looked like he couldn’t use his tongue. His eyes were telling us something was wrong, so we called our emergency vets (The Veterinary Health Centre in St Annes) and got in to see them at 16:30. When we got there we saw an amazing lady Vet (I didn’t get her name but I’ll find it out) who’s care and compassion has restored my faith in vets. She gave Louis a good check over and took a blood sample to check his PCV levels, this is something they can do in-house. These came back as 16% so he has lost 1% since Monday, she was really concerned about the sores on his paws and she asked what had happened. We explained his condition and she advised she had treated hundreds of dogs with Auto Immune Anemia and she had never seen any get these sores.

We explained why we needed to see her and she looked in Louis’s mouth and found a huge ulcer under his tongue, so it looks like he has bleed into his tongue causing a swelling which was stopping him from using his tongue, which meant he was not going to be able to eat or drink and he will be in a lot of pain. She explained that she could treat his pain and they could put him on a drip but they were concerned that in doing that it would impact his PCV levels. We were at a point of what the hell do we do now! She was shocked at how long he had been on all his drugs with no improvement, and that must be an underlying reason.

She suggested referring us to Liverpool Teaching Hospital, because if we do nothing he wouldn’t make it through the night. So once again we were faced with another huge bill, we asked her for her honest opinion “Is it time, is he telling us he’s had enough, putting the money aside are we making him suffer just because we don’t want to face putting him to sleep?” She said she didn’t think it was time yet, and after hearing how he was in the morning, and if we could find some money then Liverpool could possibly do something about the ulcer in his mouth and the sores on his legs, then they may also be able to find out what is actually causing his condition.

Once again Louis looked at us with his big brown eyes and we said we will give it one last go, but we needed to know how much we are looking at, because we have already spent so much. We’ve always said his treatment will not be based on cost, but we are now at a point where we have to cap the cost because we just don’t have it. The lady vet called Liverpool and asked if they would accept Louis as a referral from her, because there could be an issue with him already being with Rutland. She put forward such a strong case they really didn’t have an option, she was awesome. She then called Rutland and spoke to the ‘on call’ vet who had treated Louis at Rutland and asked her to send all his notes over so she could forward them to Liverpool Teaching Hospital, the Rutland vet was at home but this lady asked her to drive into the office and get the notes sent over, which she agreed to do, once again she didn’t really have an option.

So we had our appointment at Liverpool sorted and his notes from Rutland winging their way over to Liverpool. We asked to settle the bill for what she had done and she wouldn’t take a penny off us, she said we will need it for Liverpool. I became quite emotional and just wanted to hug her, but I managed to control myself, not everyone likes total strangers hugging them!

We nipped home and got Olga, we put a new duvet in the back of the car and put Louis in there and Olga stayed on the back seats so she didn’t mither him on the journey. We keep forgetting Olga must be wondering what’s going on with Louis because she keeps trying to lie on him, and she must feel a little left out as all our attention is on him, she still has her runs and we still play with her but things are different in her little world.

We got to Liverpool at around 20:30 and took Louis in, Olga stayed in the car ‘guarding’ bless her. We saw a vet called Katrina, who took a full history of when this all this started, she also had his notes from Rutland which helped. She looked in his mouth and saw the ulcer, and she was concerned about his sores on his paws, she said they needed to do a quick blood test to check his levels and blood smearing (no idea what that is), so she took Louis and asked us to wait and she would come back with the results and suggestions on next steps.

An hour later she came back in and said that the blood tests she had done, were confusing her a little, because she’s not seeing what she expected to see in a dog with Auto Immune Anemia, she said he has some of the symptoms but not all of them. She advised that he would need a blood transfusion straight away and they have live donors they can use, and this would get him to a level that they could start to treat his sores on his legs, and the ulcer in his mouth, and basically make him feel a bit better. She also wanted to repeat the imagining that Rutland had done in January to see if anything had changed, as well as a bone marrow sampling test where they take a sample of his bone marrow. She said they want to find out what is causing his condition.

Of course all this comes at a price, and I feel ashamed to say we have had to put a cap on the cost, because we just don’t have it. She understood our situation and didn’t make us feel crap about it, I’m sure she sees this all the time. We asked her if we are doing the right thing or are we just putting him through more tests for no reason, well apart from it delaying the inevitable? She said that Louis is critical and if we don’t do something then he will not make it through the night without being in a lot of pain, but they may be able to get him to a level where he is stable and they can do further tests to try and find out what’s actually causing this.

Louis's Gofundme Page  

So as we left, Louis was being given a blood transfusion, he was being given pain relief and fluid treatment. Katrina said she would give us a call around lunchtime on Sunday, she said Louis will be with them for over a week, she also said she is stopping all his drugs apart from the steroids, but she will start to reduce them which will make him feel better.

We came away with very heavy hearts and we both said we hope we are doing the right thing and we hope that’s not the last time we see our Handsome Big Boy.

Love Louis's Mum xx