Riley Chicken has had a heck of a week!

This has been one of those weeks.  New water pump for the car.  New water heater for the bakery.  Yeah, annoying but not worrisome. Not like worrying about Riley Chicken, which is what the theme of this week has been.

It started last week when Riley screamed ( !! ) as he jumped on the couch.  We know that he has hip dysplasia and that, while he’s been doing fantastic, his hips could be a real source of problems for him.  But the pain didn’t seem to be coming from his hips.  We could tell that it was definitely his right rear leg that was giving him problems, but beyond that it could’ve been his foot, knee, hip or any combination those joints (or not a joint issue at all!).   The pain was acute and went as quickly as it came.  We got him over to the vet on Sunday (we’re so fortunate to have a great vet who has Sunday hours).  Her initial assessment was that Riley has luxating patellas – in humans we call this having “trick” knees.  The kneecap floats around enough that it can come out of place and “freeze” the joint.  It’s actually pretty common in little dogs and managed through anti-inflammatories (NSAIDS usually).  In big dogs the condition is a bit harder to treat and sometimes requires surgery.  Our vet said that we might want to consider getting an orthopedist to look at Riley, and in the meantime keep him on the Deramaxx (I’d started him on it the day after the couch incident) for the rest of the week.  We also had a baseline done while we were there – CBC (complete blood count), fecal, heartworm, etc.  We took Riley home, and I felt sad, mad, worried for him – like we really hadn’t fixed anything, just knew that there was something more that was wrong.

I had a very athletic, energetic 2 year-old that I needed to keep as quiet as possible.  I just couldn’t understand why his knee would start acting up out of the blue.  I felt pretty helpless.

That night Riley got away from me and went running up the stairs.  Halfway up he screamed in pain.  After 4 days on Deramaxx, he wasn’t getting any relief. I wondered if we’d have any option other than surgery to give him a life free from pain.

Tuesday we got the results back on his tests. CBC looked great, completely normal, healthy dog.  Heartworm and fecal were clean.  But . . .  Riley came back Lyme positive.  The vet wanted to know if it was okay to run a C6 test – this would measure the level of antibodies and give us a clearer picture of what kind of infection we were dealing with.  Sometimes a dog can come through a Lyme infection with no medical support (still test positive though); other dogs need more help.  I, of course, okayed the test.  I focused on the fact that his BUN and creatinine levels (indicators of kidney function) were normal, and as a 2 year-old he was in pretty good shape to fight a Lyme infection.

Wednesday the vet called with the C6 results.  High is anything over 30 U/ml. Riley’s test showed a level of 127 U/ml.  As the vet said, there was no gray area in these results.  She ordered a course of Doxycycline and asked if I could bring in a urine sample to test for the presence of proteins (if found, it would indicate possible Lyme nephritis – kidney disease brought on my Lyme infection – which can be deadly).

This morning we can the urine results back. No proteins! That is good news!  Furthermore, Lyme disease is known to cause inflammation in joints, so it is entirely possible that Riley’s knee pain could be a symptom of his Lyme infection – and the two are not completely unrelated.  If that’s the case, that would be fantastic.  I’m going to think very positively and hope that we see decreased knee pain over the next week as we treat with the doxy.

The takeaway from all of this is that if you think your dog isn’t “right”, go to the vet! Run some tests!  Yeah, they are expensive, but I think about what could’ve been if I had NOT run those wellness tests and the Lyme infection was allowed to go untreated.  We really dodged a major bullet (I hope).  I’m reminded of a dear friend who lost her dog to Lyme nephritis – her voice was very much in my head this week – and I know how much she regrets not being able to have treated her dog with a course of doxy when it would’ve been therapeutic.  Tests are expensive, but information is priceless.

This has been a ridiculous week and I’m just so thrilled that tomorrow is Saturday.  Maybe Riley will be up for a walk and the weather will cooperate and continue to be mild.

On that note . . . this is for amusement purposes only and not to be taken internally:

Have a great weekend and I’ll see you back here Monday!

—–

Once-a-Month members get their treats automatically shipped to them, and they get 5% off!  To make a good deal even better, Tigertail Foods donates another 5% to the rescue of your choice. What a sweet deal!

—–

Share this: