04.05.09
URGENT: Mae Davis needs a CT Scan
Yes, that’s right, little Mae Davis has yet another problem we need to diagnose. And, right now is NOT a good time. We’re still way behind on Darden’s fundraising and have more and more and more requests to take in dogs. Just this weekend, I got requests to take in six dogs, three shih tzu and three lhasas, all from different unrelated people. These dogs are strays that the finders suspect were dumped. In fact, the three lhasas were dumped – they have tags on and the owners don’t want them back.
So, I’m freaking right now, but all else in on the back burner for Mae right now. Darden can hold tight until we have the funds for his second surgery.
On to Mae’s problem….
As you probably recall (and if you don’t CLICK HERE), Mae came to us from the Houston SPCA and has been featured on Animal Planet’s series Animal Cops Houston.
Mae came from a horrible shih tzu breeder north of Houston. She was very ill with heartworms and her eyes had severe kerojunctivitius, otherwise commonly known as dry eye. She started with a horrible case of kennel cough and had green snot coming out of her nose for months. After a LOT of antibiotics and many, many immune-boosting supplements, she pulled herself out of it and then we started heartworm treatment. She did poorly through the treatment and had to be on prednisone the entire time to keep the worms from scaring her lungs.
Once she got through her heartworm treatment, we found several tumors, one black in color, on her rump and front leg. Those had to be removed and thankfully, were found to be benign.
Soon after that, her left eye began to swell and her glaucoma got out of control. After many, many months and several visits to the opthalmology clinic, we had to remove her eye. That was done last February.
Then, last summer, we thought she was getting healthy when Hurricane Ike hit. Although it didn’t affect Mae, other than make her walk through the house in the dark for 17 days, it did affect me personally and the rescue because of all that happened.
Once we got things back on track, we realized that Mae’s right eye was now swelling. We tried to control the swelling aggressively with timolol and methazolamide, two meds prescribed for glaucoma, but the nasty disease won the battle and early this year, we had a procedure done to Mae to kill the tissue causing the swelling. She is now completely 100% blind.
Early this year, Mae came down with an upper respiratory infection – kennel cough. It was not a worry to me because dogs get kennel cough all the time and typically get over it within three weeks. We put Mae on antibiotics but after a few weeks, she wasn’t getting better so we switched to a different spectrum antibiotic. We did this yet again a few weeks later. Nothing was working and now our vet was getting concerned. An infection should not last this long with antibiotics.
So he recommended that we contact a specialist to see what could possibly be happening to her. We took her to Dr. Heidi Hottinger at Gulf Coast Veterinary Specialists. Dr. Hottinger saved the life of another of our Lone Star dogs, Amigo, when he developed a chronic oozing infection after surgery to remove a leg.
Dr. Hottinger suggested that our first step is a CT scan of her head to see if there is anything abnormal. The cost for that is $1500-$1800. We need to do this asap now and it is tentatively scheduled for Monday, April 7, 2009.
Please help us help little Mae. We’re certain that once we get all of her medical problems under control, we can find someone who will nurture and love her like she should be loved.
If you can possibly help little Mae, please GO HERE to use paypal, or send a check HERE or use a credit card HERE..
