As most of you who read this forum already know, I've been down the CRF road before with Pea. Now I'm traveling down it again - this time with Bitsy. Bitsy has been losing weight rapidly, among other symptoms. When I took him to Paul for tests last week, his kidney levels were elevated, and he was severely dehydrated, so we started subQ fluids. Unfortunately, after 4 days of fluid administration, Bitsy went into respiratory distress yesterday afternoon. Apparently he was unable to absorb and process the amount of fluids he'd been receiving daily (300 ml), so the fluids accummulated around his heart and lungs, causing a weak, rapid pulse and the inability of his lungs to fully expand.
So, Bitsy is now on Lasix (a diuretic which has the unfortunate potential side effect of further damaging his kidneys) to remove the excess fluid from his body and another med to dilate his blood vessels and hopefully improve both heart and kidney function. He's doing a lot better today, but this problem with inadequate fluid absorbtion has now made managing Bitsy's CRF a whole lot trickier. Too much fluid and his heart and lungs will drown in excess fluids again. Too little fluid and he won't be able to flush the toxins out of his system and process food properly. But how much is the right amount? It's anybody's guess at this point.
Of course Bitsy is also completely inappetant right now so I'm having to force feed him, and anything that stresses him at all is not good for his weakened heart.
Bottom line is, our Bitsy boy could use all the good wishes you kind folks would be willing to send his way. I'll tell you all more about Bitsy at another time. For now, I'll just let him say howdy ...
