Our sweet Hoss has been at the University of Missouri Veterinary Hospital for almost a month. He is improving a little bit each day. All of his muscle and nerve biopsies have finally come in. I was amazed how long it took to get the results in. I am not a patient person and this drove me insane waiting. I then drove the Doctor's insane. We were all glad when the results finally arrived. Hoss has a diagnosis of Granulomatosis, involving his skeletal muscles, cardiac muscle and possible eyes. This means that his body's immune system is responding to some entity. This entity could either be a normal part of his body or, more likely, this entity could be foreign to him, such as an infectious organism (that has come and gone) or other foreign body. To date, we have not found the inciting cause for his body's reaction. We do know that he tested positive for heartworm disease (positive antigen with no immature worms seen in periphery) at the time of adoption and we also know that shortly after heartworm treatment, Hoss began to show signs of illness. It is unknown whether his illness was triggered by the worm die-off or not. We suspect it probably was since he was fine prior to this. We don't believe it was from the Immiticide treatment but from his body reacting to the worm die-off.
​Hoss has started to regain some of his weight. His head will never fill in the way it was because of the high dose of Prednisone he was on. It caused him to have severe muscle loss. We started doing physical therapy on an underwater treadmill and had to stop because he was becoming very painful in his hip area. We decided we had to get an Orthopedic surgeon involved and did lots of scans to see what we were dealing with. Hoss has developed severe arthritis in his hip joints. He probably had some arthritis prior to getting sick but that has become severe since he lost so much of his muscle mass. The Orthopedic Surgeons have recommended we do an FHO (Femoral Head Ostectomy) on both hips at different time. That will give Hoss back his ability to walk without suffering from the pain. We have scheduled the first surgery this coming week.
Hoss is one of the sweetest dogs. Now that Hoss is feeling better, he loves all the attention he is getting. To keep Hoss from getting depressed since he has been in the hospital for so long, he has been going home at night with one of our very Special Surgeons. He is being loved and pampered just like he would be if he was right here with us. Once Hoss heals from his hip surgery, he will be going back to his Family. We have him on a holistic protocol to build up his immune system which appears to be working.
Our sweet boy was so close to dying when we took over his care that it was close to two weeks before we began to breathe easier and believe he was going to make it. Hoss's medical bills are going up, up, up. Please, help us with his latest hurdle to overcome. Without the surgery, he will lose his ability to walk because his hips are so painful. Thanks for caring and helping us with his medical bills.
Have a wonderful Easter.
