Sept 17 Pearl is doing poorly. It looks like her defective kidneys are getting the best of her. She is not eating. What little bit she ate on Tues and Wed came up this AM. She is just not eating at all now. Sept 19 Pearl regressed fast this afternoon. She seemed fine all morning but has stopped eating and is lethargic. I gave her an anti nausea pill and hope that makes her feel better. I am very worried. Sept 20 Pearl is doing very poorly. She is not eating anything, and throws up anything I force down her throat. She throws up her pills and the water she drinks. Her breath smells foul. She is very inactive; sleeps most of the time. She was doing so well up until last Tuesday. This happened so suddenly. I'm not sure she will last until her new meds come in on Wed. I gave her her anti nausea med this AM before I left for church and John said she threw it up 90 minute later. Sept 22 She is in kidney failure. She is repeating Murdock's last week. She ate again last night and slept through the night, and early this AM she got up and threw up everything she ate last night and the night before. It isn't going through her. One of the functions of the kidneys is to cause the intestines to push the food through the system. That isn't happening. The anti nausea pills keep everything down for 12 hours and then it comes up. Sept 22 Pearl is at the vet's. He is not as pessimistic as I have been. He said her bloodwork does not show kidney values bad enough to make her so sick. He is giving her IV fluids and IV meds and feeding. He is doing more bloodwork to test for other things. She has to go there every day from 8 AM to closing for IV treatment. She is only staying there days. She is home at night. She threw up her nausea med 2 hours after I gave it to her, and is not eating anything. Hopefully she will feel better tomorrow this time, and will eat then. She did a little poop in the driveway last night at bedtime. That's good. Sept 23 Pearl is still not eating. I think they gave her something to eat (by force?) at the vet's office because she threw up a big mess in the car coming home tonight, and she also pooped in the yard after we got home. For something to come out, something had to go in, but she has not eaten a bite here since last weekend. I will have to find out what they are getting into her and how. Sept 24 Pearl is getting worse. She can't keep anything in her stomach, not even stomach juices. She threw up all night long, and it had blood in it. She peed in her Poise pad in her sleep again, even though I took her out every 2 hours until 2 AM. I am afraid her pancreas is failing and I am going to lose her. She is back at the vet for the day, getting IV and injectable meds. Sept 24 I am just about to leave to go get her. I have not heard from the vet today. I told the tech not to give her anything to eat or oral meds and I think the vet is mad. But there is no point in her doing it and she throws it all up within the hour in the car coming home. Sept 24 The vet said that Pearl's kidney values are pretty good and he did not do the pancreas values because he want's to wail til tomorrow to do it. He is just very concerned that Pearl doesn't want to eat. She is getting 40% of her nutritional requirements IV and is beginning to show her lack of eating. I have had her home for 45 min and gave her her anti nausea pill then. In 25 minutes it should be taking effect and then I will give her her kidney med. An hour after that I will try to get a little baby food in her via syringe. He told me to try a scrambled egg. Sept 25 Pearl was sent to VRCC for an ultrasound and xrays. Sept 26 I am numb. I did my grieving over the last 10 days. Recently I saw such deterioration in Pearl's condition that she is not the same dog. When they brought her to see me yesterday before I left her there, she didn't even act like she cared that I was there. Maybe she was mad at me. She feels terrible and is not the same dog. Sept 27 We went to see Pearl late yesterday afternoon. She greeted us each calmly and then lay down on the floor of the consultation room. Again, she didn't really seem to care that we were there. the ultrasound showed a "mass" on her pancreas. They said they are going to do a needle aspiration. There was no sign that the needle aspiration had been done yet. They may wait until early AM Monday to do it so it is fresh when they send it to the lab. The vet did say one thing encouraging. That was that the "mass" didn't really look like a cancer to her, as well as she could see it on the ultrasound. She said it could be just an area of inflammation in the pancreas. I hope and pray that is what it is, and that there is something they can do about it. I woke up this morning thinking that we are quickly approaching a decision; either a very costly surgery which might kill her, or outright euthanasia. Even without the surgery, this vet bill is going to be humongous. Sept 27 The vet called this AM. She said she had just done the needle biopsy with another ultrasound and there is no mass on the pancreas. From a different angle she could see that the "mass" was an ovary that is swollen (Pearl is on day 20 of her heat cycle). She said it is not uncommon for dogs to get a swollen ovary during their heat cycle. She took the biopsy to send to the lab, and she took a preliminary look at it. She said nothing jumped out at her as being abnormal. She said Pearl had eaten a little. So far she kept it down Sept 28 The vet just called with the latest report. It seems that all of this is just Pearl's poor kidney function. She does not have pancreatitis. Her pancreas enzymes were up because the kidneys were not filtering them out of the blood stream. That could be making her nauseous. And her high stomach acid causing her ulcer is also a result of poor kidney function. She has been eating a little but she is still throwing up. They have not given me a reason why this came on her so suddenly 2 weeks ago. So I am going to bring her home tomorrow. She can't spend the rest of her life at the vet on IV. Continue