Sorry for the delay everyone. I really appreciate all of the great feedback. Things have been pretty hectic for us, as everyone probably knows (and appreciates). Sadly, Gunner took a turn for the worse yesterday -- but hopefully not his final turn!

As you know, we brought him home last week. He was seemingly doing quite well. He was moving a good bit. His energy was coming back. And if I didn't have the harness on him, he would move quite quickly ahead of me out the front door -- even though he clearly still didn't have his coordination figured out yet. He fell on his face a few times in our front yard, but nothing bad. And, I didn't laugh loud enough for him to hear me. 🙂

As the weekend progressed, he started losing his appetite. He didn't eat much Sunday night. Monday morning he didn't eat and he would barely go outside. His energy had been zapped. I worked Monday and my wife said she had to force him to go out Monday afternoon. I got home and he was still lethargic. I tried to give him water and he wouldn't really take it. I checked his incision and it looked great. No heat, no smell, nothing. I told my wife if he didn't improve he needed to go back to the vet. I got up with him twice during the night and he wouldn't go outside. I knew something was wrong. When we got up we tried to feed him and he drank a little water and threw it up.

We called UGA and told them I was bringing him to the ER. I got over there mid-morning. We had to pick him  up and put him on a gurney. He wouldn't walk at all. They received him in the ER and did blood work. After a few hours the doctors met with me and said he had "kidney trauma/failure." His numbers were super elevated. I don't have them in front of me, but they were essentially 8-10x more than they should be. The doctor told me he had a 50/50 chance for survival. As you can imagine, this floored me since he had been doing so well. I asked what might have caused this and they suggested the following:

-toxins (something he got into like antifreeze), which is 100% not possible
-too much deramaxx (pain drug); again, not likely. we cut his dosage in half after surgery and his blood levels were normal before the surgery
-response to anesthesia
-osteosarcoma had already spread to the kidneys (not super common)
-addison’s disease (again, not common)

Nothing seemed plausible. He hasn't been exposed to anything uncommon; heck, he has been in "jail" since he has been home. The Deramaxx suggestion makes no sense really since he went from 100mg to 50mg after the surgery. And his blood work was totally normal before the surgery (after 10+ days on Deramaxx). They ruled out Addison's Disease through testing and also Osteosarcoma progress in his kidneys. So, the doctors can only really point to the Deramaxx. It's all just hard to understand.

I stayed up at the ER all day and evening. They came back and said they had been giving him fluids all day. Their hope was that his bladder would fill and that the fluid wouldn't go to other parts of his body. The good news is that his bladder did fill. And when I went to see him last night before I came home he was a lot more spry. He wagged his tail and sat up. The doctors called me again late last night and said he had been "producing urine," which is a good sign. They also called first thing today and said his kidney levels had reduced about 25%, which was also good. Still not normal, but far better and on a good trajectory.

I am told he will likely be there another 3-4 days. He will be monitored constantly. And hopefully we will find out what might have caused this reaction. Super frustrating but I live my live optimistically and so does Gunner! He and I had a chat and we agreed it wasn't his time to go.

I appreciate all of the positive thoughts you guys are sending our way. I'll keep you posted!

-Jason

Hello. Just wanted to drop another update since it's the end of the week. I talk to the doctors twice a day at the UGA Vet Hospital. They are a very communicative and caring group.

Very good news today: Gunner's kidney levels have dropped every day since Tuesday (when I brought him in). His BUN levels are down from 9.2 to 2.2. And his Creatnine is now at 52. His Creatnine levels were so high when we first brought him in they couldn't even measure them with the machine.

Needless to say, the doctors were a bit flabbergasted -- for two reasons: 1) They are surprised that his levels are coming down so much and so rapidly. I think they felt they might plateau a bit higher. So they are extremely optimistic. 2) They are still unsure how this happened. Gunner did have a minor UTI, but they said that was unlikely to cause his levels to spike so much.

In any case, we are very pleased with his progress. He has been moved from ICU to a more intermediary care. And our hope is that we will be able to bring him back home (for good) on Sunday. This has been a long process, but we are just pleased that he is finally on the road to recovery.

-Jason