Nuttyolddogs: More about Charlie

The last 4 months have been a bit of a roller coaster. It was at the very end of August, that Charlie had a couple of days where she didn't want to eat. I took her into the vets for a checkup just as a precaution and asked for blood tests doing to check all was ok. The results came back and showed that her potassium and sodium were out of whack. I thought we might be going down the same route we had with TJ, with Addison's disease, so as she had the same Dad and their Mothers were sisters, I had an ACTH test done. This came back more likely to be Cushing's.

Thus started a whole raft of tests and suddenly we found Charlie was very poorly indeed. She tested positive for Cushing's, but also had pancreatitis, high blood pressure, hypovolemia and scans showed her heart was on the small side. She also had kidney disease. To cut a very long story short, Charlie spent the next few weeks in and out of the vet hospital, 9 days at one go when we thought we were going to lose her altogether. She was desperately ill.

It took several weeks to get Charlie feeling much better. The dedication shown by the vet - Adam Bell in particular - at Caldervets in Dewsbury, and the nurses who looked after her day and night, was immense. They saved her life. I cannot ever thank them enough. Adam is our hero.

At this point, Charlie has early stage kidney disease as well as hypertension. She has decided that she won't be a typical kidney patient - her biggest problem is staying hydrated. We started her off with giving fluids via a catheter in the back of her neck, but that had to be removed eventually as it was clogging up. She now has oral fluids - glutalyte - several times a day, has 4 meals a day and has amlopidine for her blood pressure in addition to various supplements.

Christmas was magic as Charlie looked and acted so well. We know that kidney disease can get worse at any point. She has regular blood tests and her bp checking to try to keep her on track. We live each day for the moment with Charlie, making more memories and making sure we have loads of very important cuddles. Tim bought me a new camcorder for Xmas to take lots of videos of her.
Lotte loves her to bits so we hope so much that she will be with us for awhile yet. The photos below show her when very ill at the hospital, on her birthday 13th December and bringing home her new toy.

What a brave star girl she is.