Case of the Month - August

Introducing the incredible Harvey!

Harvey, a 14 year old Jack Russell Terrier X, is a long term, much loved patient of ours who presented in a frightening condition in mid June. His humans returned home one day to find him almost comatose. He had clearly had a few episodes of diarrhoea and was only barely responding to their attempts at stimulation.

Harvey's parents rushed him in to us where we ran a full blood profile which revealed Harvey was suffering from severe kidney and liver inflammation. So we immediately commenced him on intravenous fluid therapy and administered pain relief.

As the hours wore on Harvey began to respond to the fluids and pain relief and even started attempting to wag his tail and lift his head whenever we came by to check on him.

Over the following days despite everybody's best efforts, there was no more improvement and fears of cancer were rising.

Harvey seemed to be only just hanging in there . It was decided that an ultrasound needed to be performed to obtain further information as to his condition.The ultrasound highlighted the severity of the inflammation of his pancreas and liver. Amazingly, Harvey fought on and started to eat for us.

In light of this we decided to manage Harvey medically from home; where he was much more comfortable. He went home on the Saturday and seemed to be coping well. He brightened up and began to take a little more interest in his surroundings and seemed to be on the mend.

However, on the Monday night Harvey took a turn for the worse. His heart was struggling to cope with the disease processes taking place in his body. He had acute pulmonary oedema as his heart was not pumping adequately.

Harvey was rushed into us where he was treated with oxygen therapy and heart medication, including high doses of diuretics to remove the excess congestion from his lungs. He stabilised and continued to be monitored closely. Our hearts continued to break for Harvey and his family, it was looking as though his time with us may be drawing to and end.

Incredibly, on Tuesday morning, we had a totally different Harvey! He was standing up in his cage, excited to be greeted and eager to go outside! We were shocked and cautious, wondering if things could really be as good as they looked.

Over the coming weeks we saw Harvey for rechecks to ensure he continued to improve and to make any minor adjustments to his medication.

We saw Harvey again today, a month later... he is well managed on his heart medication, his blood results look close to perfect and he is back to his happy, bouncy self again.

We could not be happier with the outcome for Harvey and his family!