Print

[Jen]

  "Colonel" Dirtbike has decided she's hungry again.  She's been eating lots of bacon, ham, sausage egg and cheese croissants from the convenience store, took a couple bites of dry food, and will eat different things if you tell her it's "chickin" or "butter".  She runs to meet me again when I come home.

   She no longer looks like a skeleton and has gone back to old habits - her "Lemme in" yelp, and  deep woof are back; her collar won't fall off if she shakes her head.  The er.."fat wattles" around her neck are coming back too.  They make her look very authoritative, like a good southern coon-gal should.  Packed on a few pounds, which is great.

   Still coughing a little, not productive, just an occasional hack.  Her fever finally breaks for awhile each day, and her nose is starting to become cool and wet again. Slobber is at a minimum. No more discharge from her nostrils. No more lesions.

   Her breathing is still a bit labored when lying on her side, but she's not in distress like she was.  Grooming, scratching, playing, but tires easily. A real relief to not worry about her all day long, too.

   The vet is happy, says there's no real reason to come back in yet, but to go ahead and order another refill on the medicine.  He advised that unless she either crashes or gets much much better and we think she may not need the medicine, then to bring her in for a checkup. 
Steady as she goes, but we want her to get well soon so we can start her heartworm medicine again.

Best to all-
jen

[jpwade]

Fantastic !!!!!! , perhaps you can post a followup_Summary on how and what you fed him while he was ill. Anything and everything would be helpful.

jpwade
http://www.czmartin.com/blasto
(Blastomycosis Survey & Google Earth Geographical Locations)

[Jen]

While Dirtface was very ill, she was bottle-fed Ensure Plus, along with all the butter and peanut butter I could force her to swallow. She would not chew anything, and would refuse all food, including broths, except for those Cesar dinners. Luckily, she always drank plenty of water.

She gradually began eating boiled chicken, roasted pork,  sausage and egg patties, some canned food if it was chunked, not mushy. 

Now she'll eat dry food and gobble whatever else is in her path, even right after her medicine dose.  She can totally RUN now, and is once again perfectly capable of catching and eating her own food...uck.  (She chased down a fat groundhog a couple of days ago. Don't try to take it from her either, you will not win.)

I'd say almost normal now, except she still has to take her medicine.  She is a sweet girl, and we're very thankful she's still here...even if we have to try and wrestle a groundhog away from her.
jen

[evayola]

That is so awesome that she doing better. Marge, my dog with blasto, is still eating and drinking although she has been very dehydrated and it seems as though she does her worst when she's dehydrated. We took her to the vet today to get some fluids and they suggested the pedialyte. Did you see dirtbike get diahrea from the foods you were feeding her? I am feeding Marge all sorts of anything she will eat because she lost ten pounds in one week and she does have diahrea from it. Hopefully it will pass. Congrats to dirtbike who hopefully will prevail in the end. We are praying every night for Marge. How long have you been treating her?

[Jen]

HI!
   Glad to hear that Marge is at least eating a little. I haven't gone to the main board yet, but really want to check out her story. 
   As for the question about diarrhea - we never saw her poo anywhere while she was sick, so I don't know. I don't think she had enough to get rid of at the time. She always peed just a little, but that's all we saw.
   She was down to about 50 lbs. at the worst of it in the beginning of May, but has gained most of her weight back now.  I'd say she's running close to 75 lb now, and keeps gaining.
   She is in her 3rd month of Itraconazole,  and I almost forget to give it to her every day because you would never know she's sick.
Best-
jen

[Wilson3]

YOU GO DIRTBIKE!!! GOOD FOR YOU!!!!!

Jen I am sooo happy things are looking better for you!!!!
Give that sweat girl a big hug and yourself to!!!

Wilson3