My lil Bootsie's Health Troubles

                    "THE BOOTSIE   FILES"  

 The first malady to befall little Bootsie was in 1998. She'd gone in for a dental cleaning, and while there, the vet felt a lump under her skin on her chest by her front leg. It turned out to be a mast cell tumor, which is a pretty aggressive cancer. We had her operated on to remove it, and thankfully, have not had any problem with tumors ever since.

Then about a year later, Boots wasn't feeling well...for three days she would hardly touch her food. The final straw came when I took her out in the backyard to "do her business". As I stood on the porch watching her, she looked up at me and fell over in a faint. Off we went to the emergency clinic. They did test after test, and couldn't figure out what was wrong. We finally brought Bootsie to an internal medicine vet, and after keeping her another week, diagnosed the problem as a defective spleen. (It's actually uncommon for a dog's spleen to just "go bad" for no apparent reason). Little Boots underwent a splenectomy, and got much better. 

 Boots has had seizures since she was a puppy, but they weren't bad enough  or frequent enough to medicate her for them. After the splenectomy, that changed! She began having seizures that were longer, more frequent, and more painful. Then they began to come in clusters. She was put on phenobarbitol to control the seizures. THIS caused her to gain about 4 pounds, which is ALOT on such a little dog! Look for yourself! Pretty chubby, eh!?       Bootsie developed arthritis, which was even worse with the extra weight. We put her on a strict low-fat prescription diet, which she is still on today.

Fast forward two years. I sat up all night with a sick little Boots...she was throwing up hourly. Took her back to the vet, where more tests were done. She was diagnosed with two different things: Hyperlipodemia, which is almost exclusive to schnauzers, and means that their is a high amount of fat in her blood because her body can't process fat very well. But the second diagnosis was the worst: Bootsie has liver disease. The vet believes it was brought on by the meds I have to give her to control seizures, so there's not a lot I can do about it. At the time of the diagnosis two years ago, they gave Bootsie one year life expectancy. Well, I'm sooooooo happy to say that she's a year past that now, and she's doing great!

 I've even managed to get her weight back down closer to where it should be, and her arthritis is much better. I give her milkthistle in her food every morning, as well as two other holistic supplements, and I also give her 200 iu's of Vitamin E every other day. If Boots gets into the garbage, it's almost a guarentee that she will wind up back in the vet clinic for an overnighter with a catheter and all that other un-fun stuff! It just kills me whenever I have to leave her there. I cry until she's home again, and I call the vet every two hours wanting updates! What a brave and courageous little dog Bootsie is. Next to her, I look like such a complete wuss!!