Milla update!

So, I didn't blog about Milla at all yesterday, but that's because I was too busy/worried, so it didn't cross my mind.

Tuesday night Milla's leg swelled up even more, it continued to do this into Wednesday. Her entire leg started to swell after a while, even her poor little toes. This was like a hard swelling, like rock hard. After a while it started turning a deep red/purple color and looked awful. Even the back of her leg looked awful. Her flank started to swell last night, but it was retaining water, as was the back of her elbow area. So overall the swelling and coloration have gotten worse.

With that being said, her temperature has gone down to the 101 range, which is perfectly normal for a dog. She's also started eating more -- even canned food! After Tuesday, she started putting more pressure on her foot with each day. Today she's almost walking completely normal with just a slight limp.

I had to tell all of this to the vet today when I called. His reaction? "Well it's not what we were thinking, bring her on in and lets see if we can get some more fluid out of it." So off we went.

We were taken back nearly as soon as we walked in the door, which was such a huge relief. It didn't take him long to confirm Milla has "pitting edema", which most likely occurred from snake bite. He said to achieve bruising that severe, it would have to be from some type of bite or trauma. He even said that it almost has to be a bite, he just can't find the actual bite mark.

With that being said, Milla received a cortisone shot in the rump, an extra week of her two antibiotics and a weeks worth of a steroid/pain reliever combo. It was such a relief to hear him say that! Man, the stress and worry from the past few days was some how lifted in an instant. This drive home was much, much less tense than the drive home Monday.

In other news, I ran in Walmart to grab a few things on the way home while LaVaughn and Milla stayed in the car. While I was in there I saw a bunch of things on the clearance table, a few things in particular really stood out to me. One of those things being Jimmy Choo perfume for $10! I got two of those, two tubes of roll-on Flower perfume, some One Direction spray and some Aveeno face cream. I got ALL of that for under $35, can you believe it? I love when I'm able to find amazing bargains like that.

I guess that's all for now...

-Megan

Dogs mysterious leg swelling...

So last night around 3:30 am when LaVaughn and I normally feed the cats and Milla, something went awry. When LaVaughn tried to get Milla to stand, she wouldn't! It was almost like she was paralyzed - it was absolutely terrifying! A panicked LaVaughn ran to the glider room where I was and told me. I quickly made my way to the living room where she was. After much coaxing, we were finally able to get Milla to the kitchen where we discovered she was favoring her right read leg. We were slightly relieved when we saw that she could walk on one of her legs and wasn't completely crippled.

Since Milla's on the hefty side, we just chalked it up to her pulling something and didn't think too much into it - she's stepped wrong before and hurt her leg, we figured it was something like that. We went to bed around 5 am and was up in a panic just after 7 am because Milla wouln't stand again. That's when we decided to head to the vet.

We got blankets down in the car and headed towards Fredericktown. I mentioned before we left the house that we should probably all before we go, just to be on the safe side. We stopped just at the start of C hwy and called. Just as I suspected, all of the vets were in surgery and the only opening they had was 3 pm. I called our other vet in Poplar Bluff and it was the same thing. The only difference is that they didn't have an opening slot and would have just had to work us in sometime after 1:30. We kept the guaranteed appointment and went back home.

We both went back to bed until just after noon, which I'm so grateful for.

It didn't take us long to make it to the vet and, of course, they were packed. Milla wasn't feeling good at all, so she slept almost the entire time in the waiting room, which is not her usual thing. We got Dr. Swinford and he recommended x-rays before anything. We were sent back to the waiting room while they took Milla to the back.

It was nearly 35 minutes before he came out and spoke to us. He told us that there was no breaks or fractures that he could see. I don't think I mentioned this, but her knee area was really swollen at this time. He aspirated some fluid from her leg and said that he honestly didn't know what it was. He said there were no white blood cells in it, which was odd. We was upfront with being unsure and recommended we take her to a specialist, She was also running a 105 degree temperature, which was super high. He ended up sending us home with two different antibiotics and some Metacam.

As of right now, her temperate has gone down to 102.6 -- it was 103 earlier, but it's gone back down. It actually went down some last night, which is amazing. She didn't feel well at all yesterday evening. She didn't eat her burgers from McDonald's, all she wanted to do was drink water and sleep. She wouldn't eat anything yesterday evening, but I did get her to eat some ham last night and super early this morning -- it's all she'll eat, so she's getting it.

She seems a little better today. Like I said, her temp is down, but her swelling isn't. The swelling got worse last night, which worries me. But, she does seem to feel better. I'm just hoping and praying that her antibiotics kick in soon and she's on the road to recovery. I have to call the vet tomorrow and give him an update. He's out today, which is why I can't call him today.

So there's that. Another hellish week of being on the brink of a nervous breakdown! Please keep Milla in your thoughts, prayers, meditations, or ANYthing that you do. It'll be much appreciated.

-Megan

Milla at the vet yesterday:

This is her leg today: