With the amount of alcoholism in my family and chosen life partners, I always assumed it would be life's greatest irony that I'd end up with liver cirrhosis.

Never did I ever consider it would be my dog.  😢

This has all come out of nowhere.  On January 10, I took my perfectly healthy dog to her routine checkup, where the vet declared her to be perfectly healthy, and in excellent shape for her age.

The next day, the vet called with the results of her blood test, and said if she hadn't been in the room when Macie's blood was drawn, she'd have sworn they took blood from the wrong dog.  Because the numbers she was seeing and the chocolate nutbar she'd been seeing did not make any sense.  Her liver health indicators were off-the-chart bad, with her ALT in particular registering over eight times higher than the worst-case upper limit of health.

And so, an internal specialist was called, and an ultrasound was scheduled for the 23rd.  They had to sedate her, because she was wiggling around too much for them to get a good image.  When I went to pick her up, she was still ridiculously groggy – and she was having trouble all night, and still not fully herself until Wednesday.

The good news, though, was that the ultrasound found no masses on her liver, so that ruled out cancer.  Her liver was smaller than it should be in a dog her size, though, and had a very coarse consistency throughout.  Her other organs looked normal, other than some “sludge” in the gallbladder, and some fluid build-up in her abdomen around her liver.

So… it could be chronic active hepatitis (most likely) or bacterial hepatitis (not likely, since she shows no symptoms), or copper storage (more of an issue in other breeds, but possible – and easy to treat with diet).  All of which are treatable – some more complicatedly and expensively than others…

So they scheduled a biopsy for her, to figure out which of those three it could be – needed to be surgical, so they could get a big enough sample.  They got her in today, and took three big chunks to get tested.  The surgeon said he was seeing a lot of unusual colours on her liver, and it was much lighter than usual – he suspected some sort of cirrhosis.  He confirmed that the liver had a rough texture and bumpy consistency, and the with the size of it, whatever is happening has probably been going on for a long time.

He was able to get three big samples, which will now be sent off to the lab.  The first will go under a microscope to see what's going on with her liver cells.  The second will be tested for a bacterial infection.  And the last will be to test for excess copper levels.  We should have more answers (and hopefully a treatment plan) next week, so she can live on into geezerhood with a good quality of life (so may we all).

The BAD news is, she has to be KEPT STILL for TWO FREAKING WEEKS before her staples come out.  (I'd say "send alcohol", but don't feel like joining her in her cirrhosis...)

They kept her under observation for a few hours, and when I picked her up, she was super-groggy, not able to stand on her own, and not happy about being so stoned. (The car ride home was heartbreakingly musical 😢 )

One of the vet techs, Emilina – bless her and all the caring staff at Simcoe Veterinary Hospital — followed me home to carry her to the living room, since the dog sling would have pulled at her staples. I don’t know how I would have managed, if she hadn’t offered!

Macie has some pain meds that I’ll start her on as soon as I’m sure she won’t choke. She also has the cone of shame. No stairs, no off-leash outside, no playing. Not sure what I’ll do tonight, since the cone in the crate is not terribly comfy, but I don’t want her jumping on the bed. We’ll get to that later.

In the meantime, she’s home and has another funky haircut, and would like to just say no to drugs.

* Update to the update – still haven't managed to get a painkiller in to her, she doesn't want pumpkin OR cheese.  And she was totally agitated before and tried to walk towards the door, but her back legs wouldn't go where they were supposed to, and the poor girl ended up pooping inside.  (She mastered NOT pooping inside within a week of arriving home as a puppy, so she's feeling a little humiliated now, and my heart is breaking for her.)

** Update to the update to the update:  Not to be outdone, Jasper vomited on the bed earlier, and forgot to tell me.  🤦‍♀️  I am totally ready to stop being a strong, capable adult, any moment now…