Toby
What's a Miracle
Usually miracles only happen in books or on TV.
One little puppy came through the clinic that now has us all believing in miracles.
Toby, at 5 weeks of age, was found locked in a closet with his litter mates and a
boxer assumed to be his mother.
Approximately one week after finding a new home, he became sick. He stopped eating
and started vomiting frequently. We treated Toby with fluids for dehydration and
with antibiotics. He went home with medication and special hand feeding instructions.
Two days later, Toby was back and was declining. He now had diarrhea and was skinny
and losing weight. We showed his owners how to give fluids subcutaneously and
gave them additional medication and feeding instructions for the weekend. When
Toby and his family left, we didn't think Toby would make it through the weekend,
but the family wanted to try.
Monday morning came and there was Toby, ready to prove us
wrong. Since Toby would not give up, neither would we. Dr. Johnson suggested performing
some blood work. When we saw the test results the next morning, we could not believe
it. The results showed that Toby had no WBCs (< 400) which meant he had no ability
to fight infections and this pointed to parvovirus as the cause, usually a fatal
disease especially puppies. We modified Toby's therapy to help his body fight
this horrible virus and prevent septicemia.
Unfortunately, Toby was not out of
the woods yet. Two days later Toby visited the emergency center and was placed
on oxygen because his breathing was so bad. He now had something else to fight
- pneumonia. We added nebulization treatments to help break up chunks of infected
phlegm in his lungs and make it easier for him to breathe.
The first day that
we nebulized him, he was so tired, he just laid there in our arms while he inhaled
clouds of moisturized medication ejected from a tube in front of his nose. But
the next day, forget it. He was not having any of this. Because the treatments
were a big part of his therapy, Sandy and Derek tried putting Toby in the induction
chamber for his treatments which is a special tank (like a 30 gal fish tank) that
we use for anesthetizing fractious cats. Thankfully, it worked. Toby was not happy
but he received his treatment.
We sent Toby home on Saturday with the tank, nebulizer,
and medications under the owner's arms. It looked like she had just been to a
sale at Wal-Mart. He came back on Monday, finally breathing easier and feeling
better. We continued antibiotics for several weeks as he continued to improve.
A few days ago, Toby came in acting normal and ready for regular puppy care. He
was finally going to get vaccinations. At this point, things like injections were
a ‘piece of cake'. We gave Toby a T-shirt that said "I survived Parvo and all
I got was this lousy T-shirt". Perhaps this was not a miracle to some, but to those
of us who watched this little puppy struggle for 3 weeks to beat incredible odds,
it definately was a miracle!
From the Spring Newsletter of 2005
Lately, Toby has been feeling great and meeting new dogs
and getting into all sorts of trouble just like any healthy happy puppy.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]