Where to begin....It all started on September 7, 2010 when I finally made an appointment for Maggie after she'd been cough for several days. I was lucky enough to get into Noah Animal Hospital the same afternoon that I called. The doctor did some blood work and prescribed some antibiotics and cortisone pills for the cough. In that same visit her blood work came back with high ALT levels. ALT is short for alanine transferase. This is an enzyme that is present in the cells in the liver. In order for it to be found in elevated quantities in the blood stream, liver cells have to be leaking the enzyme. So rises in this enzyme indicate damage to liver cells sufficient to cause them to leak the enzyme. He gave her some pills to stabilize that as well. We made a second trip on September 15, 2010 as he wanted to run her blood work again to see if the medication had worked. It did help but it also showed that her kidney and creatin levels had increased this time. While waiting for the doctor to call us in I was rubbing Maggie and discovered a rock like bump on her belly. I mentioned this to him during our appointment. He took out a needle and took some fluid from the bump. He ran in on a slide under his microscope and did not like the looks of it and told me he would have to do surgery. Luckily she was already scheduled to have her teeth cleaned on September 17, 2010. He told me he'd clean her teeth and if he had time would do surgery to remove what he was now calling a tumor. I suggested removing the tumor and if he had time to clean her teeth. We we lucky that he was able to do both. We picked up Maggie that afternoon and she was completely bandaged and had beautiful teeth.
She got home and ate like nothing ever happened. We removed the bandage the following day to find about a 3" slit with 12 staples. It did not hold Maggie back, she was such a trooper and extremely inspiring. Now it was the waiting game for 10 days. Was the tumor going to come back malignant or benign. We took her in again on September 26, 2010 to have her staples removed, check her blood work once again and get the results from her tumor. Her kidney and creatin levels had balance out but the ALT levels had tripled. She is currently on meds again to decrease that level. Unfortunately he had no results on the tumor so we had to wait another coupler days. On September 28, 2010 I called to see if they had received anything from the lab. The person who answered the phone put me on hold to check to see if any results had come in. When the phone was picked up it was to doctor and he gave us the best news...Maggie's tumor was benign.
We go in again on October 16, 2010 to get it checked once again. After a little research I found that their are numerous contributors as to why those levels increase. A few being the sedation from surgery, antibiotics, etc. Our girl seems to be doing well except for this crazy cough that doesn't seem to let up. More to come on our Mag Pie.
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