Katie
Success Stories
Katie, IN
National - 2013
We adopted Katie from family friends she was 1 out of a litter of 4. She is the last survivor of her litter. We got Katie when I was 16 and I became attached to her very quickly even though she was a family dog she slept with me every night in my room and would always go with me places like the park and stores and pretty much any time I wasn't going to school or work. I met my boyfriend when she was about 5 years old. She never really warmed up to any guy not even my dad really, but with my boyfriend it was different she loved him almost instantly ( it took her a couple times to realize she would have to share me which she didn't like at first but she got used to). We have a running joke in my family that she doesn't actually know my boyfriend by name which is Malek, but when ever we say go to Malek she looks at us when we say go to boyfriend she goes right to him. It's pretty funny. When we decided to move out to Indiana I told my mom that Katie had to come with me, that I couldn't leave her behind. She agreed and cried when we moved but she knew that I would do anything to take care of her. She does love it at Purdue and I don't think she would really mind any place as long as she was with me.
She was in good standing health for almost 12 years and then in early January her stomach had bloated up and I thought it was going to twist which I know is very dangerous. We took her to our vet and the vet had said it was just gas but the x-rays showed that the stomach had not twisted so they gave us helpful tips to prevent any more gas from forming and they said it should resolve itself. After a few weeks the symptoms did not go away so we went back to the vet they took some blood work and told me to wait for the results. They called me after the weekend and said that from the blood work it looks like she has an infection and that she is in kidney and liver failure and that they wanted to send us to Purdue Small Animal Hospital. When we went to Purdue they said that her kidney and liver levels were high but not at a level where she could die. They took some x-rays and an ultrasound and located a large mass in her stomach. The vet said it was a little bit bigger than a large coconut and it looked very vascular and it could be the cause of her 30 lb weight gain over the last few months. We had to schedule another appointment and at that appointment they were supposed to do another ultrasound and do some blood work to check her platelets and clotting factors then they were going to poke into the tumor and take cells and send them to pathology. They discovered after the second ultrasound that the tumor was connected to the spleen and they said because it was very vascular and because the spleen carries so much blood they can't poke it because of the high risk of internal bleeding. We had 1 last appointment with surgery and that was this past Tuesday and that was when they said that they couldn't let Katie go home there was too much of a risk that the vascular tumor could rupture and she could have internal bleeding. They kept her over night and wanted to do the surgery first thing in the morning on Wednesday. They contacted me Wednesday afternoon and said she did very well that she was on pain meds and antibiotics so she wasn't really eating a lot but that she was up and moving and that when they went in the looked at other organs and it hasn't seemed to have spread any where else. She was observed for a couple of days after the surgery but they finally released her to me to go home on Friday afternoon. She is doing so much better now there are little things that i can tell she feels much better. When we go for walks she starts to sprint and try to run a little bit and when we were leaving the vet office they said to help her into the car and not let her jump in but she hasn't jumped into the car in months i have always had to help her in. Then when I tried putting her into the car once we were out of the vets i got her front paws in and as i counted to 3 to lift her back paws in i felt her jump of the ground. It made my day just to know she will be back to her old self in no time.
She is doing so well right now and she is progressing more and more each day and that wouldn't have been possible without your guys' help and I can't express how much thanks I have for your organization and that without your help I would not have my baby girl home with me and doing so well. Thanks again so much!
