A Little Miracle

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This should have posted yesterday...

First, I cannot thank all of you enough for the prayers, both on FB and Twitter. Here is the whole story...

A little more than a week ago, Uno was fine. Sure, she was extremely tiny, but she ate like a horse, play wrestled with her mother, chased us all around the house, and even climbed up our shirts to sit atop our shoulders and playfully chew on our ears. I have the videos to show this.

All little pups need to be de-wormed. Uno had missed her 2 and 4 weeks doses, as she did not weigh enough for me to feel safe about calculating the dosage.Finally, she was close enough to 16 oz that the vet said I would be safe giving her a dose that was 1/5 of that recommended for a 5 lb pup. I did this and actually cut it short of the dose suggested, as she wasn't a whole pound yet. Within hours, Uno started to change.

She first started with turning away from her food. Next, she began acting lethargic and sleeping more and more. Though she had been getting up during the night and eating from her dish for a while, Last Wednesday night, she slept through. Thursday morning, she woke us at daybreak, howling and whimpering. She was running from room to room, in a panic, almost as if she was in a dream state. If I picked her up, she wouldn't make eye contact and would thrash and fight, wanting to be sat back down.

When I sat her down, she immediately would go back to the running thing, pausing only when she saw a dark corner or crevice around the room, then she would try to go into the place, as if she was in search of a totally dark area. I grabbed her just before she went behind the fridge, under the cabinet base, under the stove etc... Finally, I put up a safety gate, to stop her going in the kitchen. She started clawing at it and howling, trying to stuff her head through the spaces, determined to return to the kitchen. She acted like she was out of her mind in pain.

This horrible event lasted for maybe 20 minutes and then she was back to normal. I decided that maybe she had woke with a sever tummy ache, since she had not eaten all night. Or maybe she had a headache. When I have a migraine, I am tempted to act just like she was. No kidding. Anyway, she was fine the rest of the day. But, come Friday morning, she did the exact same thing again. That afternoon, after she had been sitting on my lap for a while, I sat her down on the floor. Instead of walking away, she began flailing her legs, unable to get up on her feet. She was honestly rolling across the room. I picked her up and saw that her body was stiffly locked into a U position and her eyes were showing mostly white.

The vet was already closed. In a panic, I went to Google and searched for Chorkie Seizure. I quickly found a page that said tiny dogs, under 20 weeks, were very prone to blood sugar dips, which might cause a seizure. The symptoms the lady described were exactly what Uno was displaying at that minute. She suggested putting a dab of corn syrup on the pups gums and it should bring it around. I did just that and within a few moments, she was back to herself.

Over the weekend, she slowly began sleeping more and more and having seizures. I did my best to get food down her. We had bought her a different food on Friday night. She seemed to eat more of it than she had been. There were no running episodes on Saturday or Sunday morning. But by yesterday at 3 A.M., she was completely unresponsive, other than lapping some liquids from a teaspoon and accepting dabs of corn syrup. I called my daughter and left a message, hoping she would help get Uno to the Vet at opening hour. I went online to FB and Twitter and asked folks to pray.

I called the Vet at 8 a.m. and asked to move Uno's already standing 1 p.m. appointment to immediately and was told to bring her in. We were told to call back at noon, to check on her progress. Instead, the vet called me at around 12 and told me all the bad news about Uno. She said they had "ran a few tests". No registering temp. No registering glucose. Her soft spot has never closed. Then she told me that Uno also had fluid on the brain. She said that her her head was HUGE and that her growth was either stunted or she was a runt. She said she weighs less than a pound. I explained that I had no way to know how small she was in comparison to her litter mate, as I never saw it. I also reminded her that Uno had never made it above a pound to being with, pointing out our recent worry with getting a correct de-wormer dose.

She told me that they would keep her for a few hours and try to raise her glucose and feed her a/d ( a special dog food that can be drawn into a syringe). But it wasn't looking very promising for Uno, as she had had several seizures since arriving there at 8. I was told to call back at 3 p.m.

When I did, the vet said that there had been no change in Uno. She was eating her food and taking the glucose treatment with no problem, but was still unresponsive otherwise and still seizing. She told me that this was obviously due to the brain fluid and her traumatic birth. That there was basically no hope for her, as she couldn't even raise her head and had no use of her legs. She said it would only get worse from here. She was really, really, trying to push me to have Uno put down.

Confused, I asked just how it was that Uno was a vegetable all the rest of the time, yet could have fits of running around the house in fits of insanity. I mean, if she has no use of her legs, due to the fluid and birth trauma, what goes with this disability, when she is having those episodes. She said, "Yes, but you said those were a few days ago. She has just gotten progressively worse" I corrected her, "Actually, I said the running fits started a few days ago and left for a couple of days. She was running and having a fit, just moments before I called your office this morning." She said she couldn't explain it. I could tell she did not believe me. I told her I had a other people who witnessed the event.

She sort of pretended to believe me. Yet, she was determined to paint Uno as a disabled puppy. A quivering, crippled, blob of fur. One that had been stressed at birth and progressively worsened over her first six weeks. Any one of you, who has kept up with the pics and videos I have posted of her, knows this isn't the case. This puppy was small, but thriving. Plus, her head may be apple shaped, resulting in her looking more like a kitten than a dog, but it is by no means HUGE. That is when I decided to ask my next question...

"What sort of test did you run on her, that shows she has fluid on the brain?" Brace yourself for her reply. "Oh, I didn't run any test for that. I can just tell by looking." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! This woman led me to believe that my pup was at death's door from brain fluid, all based on a look?! I pointed out to her that the head shape Uno has is referred to as Apple Head and that lots of Chorkies have it. She said that fluid on the brain is what makes them Apple Headed. If I could have yanked her through the phone, I would have. But, as my precious Uno was still in her care, I surely didn't want to piss her off. As I was certain she was coo-koo for Cocoa Puffs at this point.

She agreed to try more glucose and call me back at 3:30. That time passed and soon it was almost 4 p.m. The office closes at 5 and no way was I leaving my baby there over night. No staff is there at night. I called them to see what the deal was and she said that we had a breakthrough. Uno had sat up and was yapping at them. I asked her to pack her up with some of the canned food and glucose supplement and told her my SonIL would be by to get her. I caught him on cell and aske him to run by and get her, as I had no way to get there in time.

When he arrived here with her, she was locked up into a full seizure and was way skinnier than she had been yesterday morning. For real, I could feel her hipbones and her stomach was sunken in. I immediately gave her the glucose, a syringe of food, and a syringe of my homemade puppy formula ( this is what I am using for the orphan litter of hounds). I tucked her in a heated box and waited for an hour. When I checked, she was not in a seizure and made eye contact. I started giving the foods again and this time, she honestly walked to the syringe. The third feeding, she actually gnawed on my hand, trying to find more of the formula, so I put some in a spoon and she lapped it up. Three times!

As the even progressed, she started walking around the house. She is supposed to be on bed rest, but by midnight, she was literally climbing out of her box. At 2 am feeding, I sat her next to the can of food, as I filled the syringe and she made a dive for it, eating like crazy. She did the same with the formula that I gave her after. As I sat down to write this LONG (sorry) post, she was playing chasing games around the living room, with her mommy, Lola. She is acting more and more like the pup she was before I gave her the de-wormer. I was supposed to return her this morning, so she could be nursed all day. It doesn't look like I will need to.

Now, if that isn't a miracle, I don't know what is. Prayers do work!

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