For those that do not know, Zeus, my 4 yr old Brindle Boxer became very ill about 6 weeks ago. To the point where he slept all day and, when he got up to eat, was having fainting spells. Luckily and for the most part, he was caught before hitting the ground. Brought him to the ER on a sunday night, they took blood and found he was anemic (very low RBC count and it is the RBC's that carry oxygen to the vital organs). Docs were not sure what was causing it so he stayed in there for a few days to run tests. While in the ER they conducted tests as a process of elimination to determine the cause. First the did an ultrasound on his heart then another in his abdominal area in case of internal bleeding. Good news is they both were OK, bad news in that they still don't know whats causing it. Next they did a bone marrow biopsy which would show either cancer, an infection, or some poison he may have eaten. Good news, all negative. As there were no other possibilities he was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease. Meaning his own body is destroying the immature RBC's before reaching the bloodstream. Since the diagnosis was made, they gave him blood transfusion to pump his RBC's, hormone shot to stimulate the bone marrrow and started him on meds. He came out of the ER with several battle wounds, shaved areas and 8 pounds lost. For the past few weeks we have been been frequenting the Dr for bloodwork, many transfusions and hormone shots. Just this week, he is showing signs of improvement. Immature RBC's jumped from 10k to 82k and his total RBC count went from 20 to 25. Zeus should be around 50-60 but its still a good sign. As all this has been taking place with the ER stay, biopsy, hormone shots, transfusions, and meds we rang up a tab of over $8k. Before making progress decisions on the testing, i would ask the Doc for probable outcome. Always told me he could not tell. Zeus may recover and Zeus may not.

I know as I've heard from many folks, $8k is alot to spend for something like this. they say I should have put Zeus down, gotten a new dog and saved a boat load of cash. And yes, I got angry with them for saying such things about a family member. I learned to let those comments go as I know what was right in my heart. Zeus is so young and I would do it all over again just knowing I gave him the best chance possible to live a long healthy life.

We go back to the Dr's next week for more bloodwork.