Does Sonny suffer from mega-esophagus? Does she have Addison's Disease? Does she "merely" have IBS or an IBD? (Irritable bowel syndrome or disease). Does she even have an immune system? Does she have a lupus-type auto-immune disorder that travels from organ to organ, system to system?
Does anybody have the answer to these questions?
If you do, free advice is welcome. I think I'm going to have to refuse to pay anymore for expert advice. Not that I don't appreciate Dr E and all the staff. She and they are more than wonderful.
But Sonny is The Money Pit. Like the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, no one really knows how to stop it. But for now, right now, the BUCKS ARE STOPPING! I can't pour concrete into her mouth to keep what's inside from coming out. Well, I guess I could but it would create other complications. Let's just say that my daughter is the first complication. The second would probably be PETA.
But I can control how I handle her next episode. Oh, and there will be a next. There always is. There always will be.
Because of her gastrointestinal problems, regardless of its name, my carpet is ruined. She's regurgitated on the carpet so many times in so many areas that the only solution is to take out the carpet and put in some kind of new non-carpeted flooring. My living room floor has stains all over the place. Sure, we've managed to clean up most of them, but after 3 years, the carpet has lost. And The Money Pit has won. So, replacing the carpet is not feasible at the moment. Probably never. Well, until we plan to sell the house, that is. Reference the aforementioned Money Pit.
And to set the record straight, Sonny regurgitates. She doesn't vomit. There's a difference, at least according to Dr. E. . Vomiting requires heaving and stomach spasms and a feeling of nauseousness before hurling out stomach contents and bile. Regurgitating happens at a second's notice, without any precursor or foreknowledge.Sonny's episodes? It's more like sneezing. You don't know you're going to sneeze until seconds before you do. When Sonny regurgitates, it takes the poor baby by total surprise. She could be just walking along and out it comes. Or she can be getting up from lying down and out it comes. Or she can be jumping around like a maniac and out it comes.
But it doesn't look like vomit. It looks like dog food that's been sitting in a small amount of water for a good while. Fully shaped, undigested, just soft. It looks like the food has never ever been in her stomach -- maybe just hanging around in her esophagus -- or her digestion is just really really really slow.
I know this is gross. Welcome to our life.
She may go several days -- IF WE'RE LUCKY -- not throwing up, and then regurgitate 4 times in a 20 minute period. And it happens so suddenly, she's not even expecting it. If she gets excited, out it comes. If she's nervous, out it comes. If she gets up too fast, out it comes. And then, poor baby, she runs into her crate because she just can't figure out what just hit her.
She regurgitates when she's under stress. But according to Dr. E, it doesn't matter if the stress is good stress or bad stress. Same reaction. Supposedly, we could increase her dose of prednisone in anticipation of a stressful situation, but the same events don't necessarily trigger the same response each time. And we're at the lowest dose we can give her. If we start increasing it on a regular basis, she first gets terribly thirsty and drinks enormous amounts of water. That get regurgitated. Secondly, she starts losing her fur. Neither reason is acceptable enough to warrant a long-term increase. Also, see The Money Pit.
This past weekend while at my daughter's house, we decided to leave Sonny outside of the crate along with her brothers, Charley and Sig. Outside of the crate for the very first time without a human in attendance.Of course, she wasn't alone. Charley and Sig were there. But, when we came home after being gone one hour, she had regurgitated on the floor.
Of course. Stressed out because she was out of the crate for the first time. I should have known better, but I really didn't see that one coming.
Welcome to our life.
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