Immune Medicated Hemolytic Anemia

[Everythings Shiny]

RIP Atlas *Hugs* Teebs.

[shekhina]

I don't like to be a little black cloud when this disease shows up in DOL dogs but I wish that when we went through it we knew ahead of time how serious it was and how likely it was that our dog would die. The vets said things like "he's a very sick boy", what I'd wished they said is "there is a good chance your dog will die" because perhaps then we might have been better prepared for the harsh reality.

Absolutely. One of my cats almost died the same way a few months back and as hard as it was hearing that he would almost certainly die I'd rather know and prepare myself than have false hope.

It just came out of nowhere, went out to the cat run to give them chicken necks and he collapsed and passed out. He was at the vet within an hour and the next day the vets told me just how serious it was, that it was most likely that he would die in the next few days. They started with aggressive treatments as soon as he was at the vets that night though. They couldn't get an IV in so they gave fluids directly into some cavity in the body and he was kept in a heated bed the whole time he was there. Got an IV in the next day and he was on antibiotics and steroids while we waited for the blood smears to come back.

I'm very, very lucky they got straight onto steroid treatment without waiting for results to come back. Their thoughts were that there was no point in waiting, because by the time results come back it's likely too late to save them and the treatment of steroids wasn't going to harm him any more than leaving him with just antibiotics and saline. Exceptionally lucky little cat, nobody was expecting him to come home at all.