The ER visit

It was a week ago Sunday we were taking Brut on a 3.5 hour drive to an Animal ER clinic and not knowing if we were coming back with him.  It was a horrifying day.  His blood pressure had dropped significanlly and that was all we could figure out at the time.  When we finally arrived at the clinic, they took Brut inside to stablize him and that's when we discovered he was bleeding in his abdomen and more than likely had a large mass on his spleen.



The vet wanted to operate.  We couldn't afford the cost of surgery.  We were ushered to fill out a Credit Care form for acceptance.  We were denied.  The other option the vet tech said was to put him down.  That's when I said, we'll take him home.  If I had to put him to sleep he was going to be with our vet at home.

We made it home after midnight that night and there were already improvements from Brut on just the ride home.  He was standing up every so often to look out the window, was drinking water on his own (I'd been hand feeding him the day before) and was keeping his head up while laying down.  We didn't know what this all meant, but I'm so glad we didn't euthanize him!

Our vet got a copy of the reports from ER vet and seemed to conclude the same results.  High blood pressure and a mass on the spleen.

Brut continued to improve every day as he gained his strength.  After a week he was finally able to go on a short walk.  Then the other day I was able to take him on a short walk.  Which would have been my biggest regret is he had died earlier.  It all felt so complete.

His eye has improved and he hasn't had to take the drops anymore, but we noticed his third eye lid kept sliding up in the early evening, when it was fine the rest of the day.  I called the eye specialist and without seeing Brut they could only guess.  That also happened to be the day we started him back on his high blood pressure medicine.  Three days later the eyelid is back to normal and we have a calmer Brut.  We are looking into a blood pressure monitor so we can keep an eye on blood pressure.
How is it that Brut improved over the last week when he could barely stand?  Our vet told us that when Brut was bleeding internally the tear more than likely in the mass clotted up and he began to recover.  His blood count earlier that week had been 32 which was on the low end and when we got to the ER clinic it was 16.  A tear could happen again, this one happened when Brut vomitted quite violently and we don't know if it will heal again this time.  He could have days, weeks, or months to live.  

We still don't know what is causing the high blood pressure and neither vets think his spleen mass and his high blood pressure are not related.  

All I know is that I'm so grateful we didn't head the advice of that vet tech!  My Brut is still here!