Well the past few days have been quite eventful for our baby girl runt. I have been meaning to get pictures up here on this blog for many days now but things with our runt have kept us really busy. Our runt started to take a turn for the worse about three - four days ago (all the days are now blending together). She was becoming more weezy and having increased difficulty swallowing while nursing on Sunny. She had a plateau in weight gain, wasn't loosing weight, but didn't gain any weight for about four days. We decided to take her to the vet in order to see if there is anything we can do to help her out. Kurt and I decided before going that we did not want to tube feed the puppy and didn't not want to go to any extreme measures testing. The vet did a chest x-ray and she was found to have aspiration pneumonia. The vet wanted to rule out an esophageal disorder, which would not be curable and we decided to complete the barium swallow test. Kurt and I were really nervous for the results of this test because had they come back showing an esophageal disorder we would have had to put her down. Baby girl's (our "name" for her around the house, since Kurt and I refuse to give her a real name.... things with names end up staying in our house) esophagus is working fine as far as he can tell. He recommended stop allowing her to nurse with Sunny and put her on strict puree food diet. This means Kurt and I now feed her up to 6 times per day by hand. Since she has a history of aspiration it is recommended to keep her upright after she eats for about 20-30 minutes to prevent reflux. In order to do this, we have use a "fanny pack" type pack to place her in around our chest after she is done eating. Kurt refused to allow me to take a picture of this..but it is rather comical. Anyways, we also got an oral antibiotic to mix with food and we were encouraged to give her water drops through out the day, as much as she can tolerate. So, Kurt and I went home and completed the Dr's orders. That night she took another turn for the worse and had a choking episode. We were able to get her airway clear and her breathing back on track. Lets just say Kurt and I got NO sleep that night and she slept the rest of the night between us after the choking event. Our vet is absolutely amazing. He called us on Sunday night to check up on us and followed up with a phone call again on Monday morning. At that time I asked him if there is anyway possible to inject (shot) the antibiotic and provide fluids any other way. So, long story short... (sort of :-) we are now giving the puppy fluids at home subcutaneously (via shot in her back) and continuing with puree foods. The last 24 hours we have seen a dramatic change for the better in her overall energy level and she is gaining weight like crazy now! She gained 3 oz yesterday alone!!! That is more weight that she use to gain in an entire week!. So although she is not out of the woods yet.. things are definitely on a more positive note. I honestly have hope for her the first time in about a week... she may just make it! During the day we put her out in the garage with her litter mates to bond and play with them. At night we bring her inside and place her in the crate beside our bed.
Kurt and I always feel that things happen for a reason... I am thinking this runt came in our lives to help prepare us as a couple for the birth of our baby in the Summer. Lack of sleep, round the clock care, feedings every two hours... sound familiar?
I have attached some pictures of Baby girl in her crate. We put a heating pad in the bottom under a towel to help keep her warm. Since she is still so skinny she has a hard time regulating her body temp. We are hoping with some intervention we will be able to put some weight on her and get her body to develop like it should. In a few weeks we will have to decide if we are going to continue with intervention... eventually she will have to be able to eat on her own without aspirating. We will cross that bridge when we get there.
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