I'm just going to post this here first. Because we don't *know* anything yet.
Billy's been acting just a bit punky lately -- not 'bad' -- just not up to par. Now it's hard to tell -- the pug is 8 months old and doing the "bratty teenager" thing. Billy's a great big brother but he's just not been enthusiastic -- not acting sick, just not quite right.
His skin has been not as good as it's been for the whole year Dr. Demers has been working with him on the special homeopathy stuff - nothing super bad -- just inflamed and kinda more scuzzy skin than he's had in the past year.
Tonight was our night with Dr. Demers (the homeopath) for Tink and Billy -- the acupuncture vet had me ramp up some of the herbs but I ran out of those last night and we wanted Dr. Demers to take a look because he hasn't responded to them well enough. We really didn't want to do antibiotics unless pushed to the wall.
Saw Dr. Demers tonight (and he's really concerned about how inflamed Billy is -- not just his skin but his gums are FIRE red (way way TOO red) and some other mucus membranes were way too inflamed. In Chinese medicine this kind of inflammation is called "heat". And it needs to be dealt with pretty quick.
I mentioned Billy usually has blood done about every 3 months and he's due and I volunteered if Dr. Demers wanted to do it I was FINE with it.
He said he was going to suggest it so they started to take blood, and the tech got a blood CLOT. Hmmm. Long story short -- it wasn't just the tech -- Billy's blood is WAY too thick -- it clotted repeatedly altho they DID finally get a good sample to send away -- from the little sample Demers looked at tonight Billy's platelets are way TOOOO high (blood that clots TOO fast is as much of a problem as too few platelets).
So we'll get blood back probably tomorrow or Friday (they had so much trouble getting a sample that the guy had been there and gone already). Could be many things -- probably the most likely is an auto-immune flare up of some sort. Could be something truly heinous like spleen cancer and other things.
So folks -- prayers & good thots for Billy - specifically:
1. Dr. Demers gave him some emergency treatment tonight -- he actually made a serum of Billy's own blood along with some other homeopathic remedies. This isn't new -- this is part of the therapy Billy's been getting for the past year. We actually thot he was *past* needing this so he's resuming what he'd done before with some serious changes in it to halt auto-immune in it's tracks if that's what it is.
2. One of the 'remedies' he gave him, in fact, is something that has already made him "feel" better. That alone is encouraging.
3. Specifically please lift Billy up that the body responds to the homeopathy fast and whole-heartedly. I really don't want to have to put him back on pred for so MANY reasons.
4. I'd ask for wisdom for this vet -- auto-immune stuff is his specialty. Dr. Demers teaches all over the United States on this stuff. It was absolutely awesome to see him go to work on this tonight.
5. Auto-immune flare-ups are scarey things. Usually when the body bounces back into auto-immune it is fast, hard and quickly deadly. Once again I have to say it's as if the Alpha of all Alphas WANTED this found tonight.
We've come SO far and he's done SO well. I've said for 2 1/2 years all I really want is a chance for Billy to "get old" gracefully.
He is not 'acting' sick. Once again, we're finding something way early simply because David and I both were concerned that he was a "little off".
Thank you so much for your prayers, good thots and support. It is SOOOO wonderful to have folks I can come to with something like this.
Prayers and good thots please? Thank you SO very much folks.