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Sandy has diarrhea

I talked to the vet this morning and they checked a urine and fecal sample. There was no blood in her feces, but she had blood in her urine. At this point, the vet is recommending a spay surgery with exploration to search for any abdominal masses that may be present. I'm really scared for Sandy, but she is young yet - only one and a half years - so I think it's only fair to give it a shot. They actually had cancellation for Monday so it freed open a spot for her so she wouldn't even have to wait that long and I won't have as much time to get anxious. It just feels like the right thing to do at this point. I want her to be comfortable and we could go up a bit on metacam, but already at .2 twice per day and she still has pain at times and despite all the meds she still has bleeding with an unknown cause, diarrhea, and not eating much. Hopefully, this will make her better. If not, maybe it will give us some answers and a prognosis, even if it's not something I want to hear.
 
Good luck Sandy. I hope whatever is making you poorly can be found and easily treated.
 
Sandy is at the vets and should be having her surgery early this afternoon. I should have an update from the vet by 2 or 3 pm.
 
Just talked to my vet. The long and short of it is this: Surgery will happen today and is probably the best option, but either way she probably doesn't have long. Surgery just may buy her a bit more time, if she survives it.
Basically, they did xrays and discovered that her caecum is distended. She's very gassy. They don't know where the blood is coming from. Best guess is her uterus. They will remove that during spay surgery and explore a bit in hopes of finding answers to her digestive problems as they don't know what's causing them.
If she survies the surgery and if the blood is coming from her uterus then spaying her should fix the bleeding. However, she will likely continue to have digestive issues. Now that we know the gas is there we could treat with something like Cisapride, but since we don't know what's causing it then we can only treat, not cure.
If I chose not to do the surgery she would likely continue to decline anyway because she has at least two or three different major problems going on now. She's already on at least 7 different vet recommended meds/vitamins/supplements.
I'm not very hopeful, but felt like surgery was worth a chance in case it could help her.
I'm at work and took a break since I'm upset after talking to the vet. I'm not shocked, but it's just a lot since I just lost my mom a month ago. (We also had one pig pass away in November and one in December). It's just been a really rough time.
Going to get back to the classroom I work in shortly and hope to distract myself a bit. I could probably go home if I really needed to, but that will be just as hard as being at work.
 
Hope4gem said:
Had Sandy at the vet tonight for fluids. I had a frank discussion with the vet about how much more it is fair to ask Sandy to go through given her struggles. I don't think we're at the stage yet of considering pts, but I wanted to get another perspective as well. The vet seemed to think that there is more we can try. That being said, she prescribed Metronidazole, Sucralfate, and Famotidine. Sandy was briefly on Sucralfate and Famotidine about 10 months ago after a period of no appetite following a course of antibiotics. The vet prescribed those meds in the off chance that Sandy had developed a stomach ulcer. The meds helped then so we are going to try them again this time. The vet also prescribed Metronidazole, which Sandy has never been on, and I wasn't told it was an antibiotic. I'm very nervous about giving it to her because the issues she has now started after a course of antibiotics. I don't want to make things worse. So I purchased the meds from the vet, but I am giving myself 24 hours to decide whether or not I want to risk giving them to Sandy. The vet asked me to stop giving Sandy Metacam in the chance that it is contributing to the gastro-intestinal issues. I'm not going to stop giving Sandy Metacam because she has really bad arthritis in her knees and I don't think it's fair to ask Sandy to go through pain when it feels like there is a low chance of actually finding a root cause to these problems. The vet also told me to stop giving Pectillin because she said that it can be over-used and Sandy could get constipated. I recently had to increase Sandy's dose of Pectillin in order to keep her diarrhea under control so I don't think there is any risk of constipation. I explained to my vet that without Pectillin Sandy needs a bath every day and there is a mess all over the cage. I don't mind cleaning up, but it would mean asking Sandy to sit in that mess for hours when I sleep and during the day when I'm at work. That's not fair at all to ask of her. I agreed with my vet just so that we could get her new prescriptions to see if they help, but I'm not going to stop the Pectillin when it seems like it's helping her. If Sandy doesn't improve soon I may consider whether or not we need to travel further afield to a more experienced vet. I'm weighing out the potential benefit of doing that versus is it fair to ask Sandy to go through more appointments, more medicines, fluid treatments, etc.
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I am very sorry but I honestly don't think that 'a more experienced vet' can do anothing more for Sandy as your vet is already doing. They sound perfectly competent to me and well aware of how the various drugs interact.

There are only so many drugs and Sandy has pretty much got them all, unfortunately. :(
 
Wiebke said:
I am very sorry but I honestly don't think that 'a more experienced vet' can do anothing more for Sandy as your vet is already doing. They sound perfectly competent to me and well aware of how the various drugs interact.

There are only so many drugs and Sandy has pretty much got them all, unfortunately. :(
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I ended up staying with the same vet. Sandy is having surgery today. Not sure if she will make it through the surgery. If she does, the surgery may buy her some time, but basically no matter what we do the vet doesn't think that Sandy has long to live.
 
Hope4gem said:
I ended up staying with the same vet. Sandy is having surgery today. Not sure if she will make it through the surgery. If she does, the surgery may buy her some time, but basically no matter what we do the vet doesn't think that Sandy has long to live.
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HUGS

I am keeping my fingers very firmly crossed for you and her. 🤞🤞🤞

You are doing all you can and are giving her every chance but there is only so much a small body like a guinea pig's can take.

Sorry for being a bit distracted at the moment and able to keep up with everything. My own old lady Morwenna has been having another wobble and I still don't know whether she'll bounce back from it or not; it is very much in the balance.
 
Wiebke said:
HUGS

I am keeping my fingers very firmly crossed for you and her. 🤞🤞🤞

You are doing all you can and are giving her every chance but there is only so much a small body like a guinea pig's can take.

Sorry for being a bit distracted at the moment and able to keep up with everything. My own old lady Morwenna has been having another wobble and I still don't know whether she'll bounce back from it or not; it is very much in the balance.
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Thank you for your kind words. I'm sorry to hear about your Morwenna. Hope you have many more happy todays with her.
 
At least you are giving Sandy a chance. I’m sorry it wasn’t a better diagnosis.
 
Wiebke said:
HUGS

I am keeping my fingers very firmly crossed for you and her. 🤞🤞🤞

You are doing all you can and are giving her every chance but there is only so much a small body like a guinea pig's can take.

Sorry for being a bit distracted at the moment and able to keep up with everything. My own old lady Morwenna has been having another wobble and I still don't know whether she'll bounce back from it or not; it is very much in the balance.
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Fingers crossed for Morwenna @Wiebke
 
Surgery is done and Sandy pulled through. She's awake and starting to move her head around. She is stable for the time-being. As long as that continues to be the case I should be able to pick her up later this evening. She will be coming home on a slew of meds. I'm trying to prepare myself for a sad outcome as I know she is still very sick, but I'm also hoping that we'll get some more happy todays.
 
Hope4gem said:
Surgery is done and Sandy pulled through. She's awake and starting to move her head around. She is stable for the time-being. As long as that continues to be the case I should be able to pick her up later this evening. She will be coming home on a slew of meds. I'm trying to prepare myself for a sad outcome as I know she is still very sick, but I'm also hoping that we'll get some more happy todays.
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Wishing you and Sandy the very best of luck and a speedy recovery
 
It’s good that Sandy came through surgery and being at home in your care is undoubtedly the best for her.
Look after yourself as well as Sandy.
Holding you in my heart ♥️ and hoping for a good recovery
 
Sandy has been home with me for about 5 hours now. She's definitely more "with it" than when I first brought her home. She's accepting critcal care from a syringe and taking water from a syringe, but still not moving around a lot. She won't eat hay, but did eat a bit of cilantro on her own. She took her meds. Will have her stay in her carrier when I go to bed because I don't trust her cagemate to leave her alone. I'll put the carrier next to the cage so they can interact through the bars if they want to. Since Sandy's not moving around much I don't think she'll mind being in the carrier. Vet said Sandy may be sleepy yet through the night. I'm so grateful I got to spend time with her today. I'm exhausted, but happy. Here's hoping we get more happy todays.
 
I haven’t been around much recently so had missed your updates. I’m so pleased that Sandy has come through her surgery. A full spay is major surgery for a little piggy so she will need your TLC for a few days, but it’s good that she is accepting of your syringe feeds and water. You are in our thoughts x
 
Merab's Slave said:
How is Sandy today
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Thanks for asking. She is much more mobile. She's been eating hay. Taking water and CC from a syringe. Her poos still aren't normal, but that's to be expected given we don't know what's wrong with her digestive system. I've not seen any blood come out of her so hopefully the spay surgery fixed that. She doesn't appear to be in pain. I think that's the most important thing.
 
Sandy hasn't pooped since late yesterday. She looks bloated. On both sides of her there are bulges. Our regular vet wasn't working today but the vet on staff agreed to give me one dose of Cisapride (she finished what we had on hand this morning) until our regular vet is in tomorrow and can call me back. In the meantime I will syringe feed her regularly and hope she gets through this. If it begins to seem like an emergency I'll drive the two hours and take her to the emergency vet but hoping she doesn't need that.
 
What a seemingly never ending rollercoaster you are on. I hope that you will very soon see some output.
 
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