Ritka and Heat Stroke 17 Aug
Wesley went by the emergency hospital first on Aug 17 Thurs am. I did a bit more to get ready to spend the day with Ritka. But when I got there the Vets were discussing sending her to UC Davis. Her blood pressure went down to 128 last night, but back up to 15? later. They wanted a Doppler Colorized flow ultra sound of her kidneys and a few other things that Davis had diagnostic wise that the hospital in Concord does not have. So they completed a pouch of plasma and we packed her up in the Van to go to Davis.
The hospital in Concord encouraged me to come and sit with Ritka – they thought the dogs were calmer and that the owners presence helped the dogs get well sooner. My biggest disappointment with Davis so far is
they will only let me have one or two 15 minute visits per day. I have visit schedule for 5:30pm. The will try to schedule her for the ultrasound and check her liver function.
I’m a wreck. The prognosis for Ritka was about 50% chance survival earlier today.
I saw Ritka at 5:30 on Thursday 17 June but she was out of it from pain killers. I’m not sure she knew I visited. She had been in a fair amount of abdominal pain. The good news was that they did the Colorized Doppler Ultrasound on her kidneys and the flow patterns looked good. Also her blood pressure was about 115 which is good. Her platelet count was 12,000 where normal is 400,000. It takes a week or more for the bone marrow to produce replacement platelets. The liver and kidney enzymes are slightly above normal, but they are not too worried. The PT was 8.5 and the PTT was 48.9
Prognosis is still guarded. She is probably through most of the DIC. But she could still be in trouble if she starts bleeding in her brain or lungs. The vets at the Animal Emergency Hospital are great – they have
still been answering my questions and calling the UC Davis Vets to check on her progress. Dr. Groff assures me that UC Davis is the place for her to be even if I can’t visit her as much as I’d like and they don’t communicate as well.
