Ultrasound and fury: Where are Alice’s organs? 2


Today we had Alice’s ultrasound. The good news is that she does not have a liver shunt! But there is bad news, too.

First the vet told me that Alice has chronic pancreatitis. She thinks she may know the cause, though.

When they were doing the ultrasound they found that her urogenital tract is not fully formed. She is missing one horn of her uterus, one kidney, and the adrenal gland that sits on top of her kidney. (She still has one adrenal gland on her existing kidney– so she is missing a kidney and an adrenal gland).

So they are concerned that with only one adrenal gland, she may be having problems making enough cortisol and so might have Addison’s disease. They think that perhaps the Addison’s was causing her to refuse food, and then our trying to feed her lots of coconut oil and peanut butter to help her gain weight and eat might have caused the pancreatitis.

They took some blood for a preliminary cortisol test. If that comes back with low cortisol, then we’ll do a further test to confirm if it is Addison’s. If it is Addison’s, she can take medication to stabilize her hormone levels.

In the meantime, we’re treating the pancreatitis by putting her on a low fat diet (not more than 7%). Her current foods have a LOT of fat! One has 18% and the other 35%!!!!! The vet gave me a recipe for a low fat food I can make in the crockpot. I ordered the ingredients on Walmart just now and will pick it up at 5PM. When we get home I can start cooking it, but it won’t be ready for dinner tonight. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning to start her on the new diet.

The vet also gave us Pancreatrophin PMG, which is a supplement that helps the pancreas.

I also got confirmation I have a super awesome breeder. We stay in touch, so I called her right after we got the test results, and she was shocked to hear the news and very worried. She told me that she will give me a new puppy when I am ready. This would be to “replace” Alice, though she won’t take Alice away from me. I’m not sure if (or when) I’ll take her up on that, but it’s good to know that the offer is there if we need/want it.

Brad got a picture of me with Hestia at the vet’s office in the waiting room. They had taken Alice to the back to do the ultrasound, so we were worried! The second picture is of me with Alice outside the vet’s office after it was all done. They said she was beautifully behaved for the ultrasound and that she is a delight!


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2 thoughts on “Ultrasound and fury: Where are Alice’s organs?

  • Tami

    So sorry about Alice’s health problems hopefully the meds will put her right and she can carry on. I mean who among us is not on meds right? Chili has meds for Cushing he takes daily. Atheist you can make a plan now.