Dad didn’t call until almost 6:00 PM yesterday, which I took as a bad sign. I figured he’d call once he’d heard from the vet, and as he hadn’t called that meant the vet hadn’t either, which meant the news was definitely not good. Dad said he actually tried to call them a few times even and didn’t get a call back.

Instead, he found out the news in person. While energy-wise, Dolly seems a bit improved. She’s still lying around, but she’s more alert, picking her head up and wagging her tail a bit. She’s walking, though still unsteadily and they’ve been carrying her up and down the stairs still. However, her bloodwork is much worse; her platelette levels are still very low and her red and white count is down even more from the weekend. Basically, she isn’t making new blood.

The vet gave her steroids and practically forced her to eat some dog food at the office, since on an empty stomach steroids will tear up one’s stomach. But other than that, she hasn’t eaten solid food since Friday.

She goes back today and we’ve decided if she continues to not eat and/or her bloodwork doesn’t improve on the steroids, we’ll be putting her down.

That sound you hear? That’d be my heart breaking. Literally.

First, thanks everyone for all the well wishes and thoughts and prayers and sweet comments you’ve left. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to reply to everyone, as you can imagine I’ve been a might distracted from the Internet. But rest assured I’ve read everything and I absolutely appreciate it!

Dad called a few times yesterday to update on Dolly.

He had first picked her up from the emergency hospital and brought her to the regular vet in Herkimer. She had a few more tests run (mostly some of the same things run again as the emergency vet hadn’t documented all the tests). Her blood tests had come up with very low platellete levels at the emergency hospital and when her regular vet had run the same tests she had come up with no platelletes. There’s still no real idea of specifically what’s wrong with her, though the general theory is that it’s some type of blood disease or disorder, probably stemming from an infection of some sort. We’re hypothesizing that she got into something we aren’t aware of, though the timing of it all does make the mind boggle.

Anyway, Dad picked her up and brought her home when he found out that no one would be physically at the vet’s office overnight to observe her, especially since he’s fully capable of administering an IV. She walked out of the vet’s office and even managed to climb up on a bit of a snow bank to take a tinkle. But Dad noted she was “hardly graceful” and that she didn’t squat down much to piddle. At home, they put her on the sofa and she was basically content. She still hadn’t eaten anything, but she was a alert and when she heard Keith in the kitchen doing dishes she started getting very interested. I happened to be on the phone with Dad at exactly this moment and he was saying that she was definitely curious about all the “kitchen noises,” probably out of pure habit of always trotting off to patrol whatever food might magically come out of there. She picked her head up a few times and was trying to figure out how to get herself off the couch (for some strange reason Keith had put her on the sofa with her back to the floor, which seemed to stump her as to how to manuever herself off). When she started wagging her tail and wiggling around Dad finally ended the call saying that if she wanted to get up and move, he was going to let her.

If she continues to improve, such as finally eating again, we’ll be able to put her on oral meds. As it stands, we aren’t sure really what will happen, it’s mostly wait and see. I’ll update again as I hear more.