Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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my almost 9 year old Golden Retriever had his front leg amputated on Friday due to a soft tissue sarcoma. The vet said surgery went great with minimal blood loss.
On Sunday Leo’s red blood cells were at 5 and my vet did a blood transfusion. Three days later (Wednesday evening) his red blood cells are only at 13.6. The vet is letting him rest and not trying to get him up and moving. He is still at the vets office. I honestly don’t know how he gets any rest there though. It’s sooooo busy there and he’s in a room that they use for pre and post surgery, blood draws, and even making phone calls.
My question is.....is this normal? Should it take so long to get his red blood cells back up? The vet told me that his other levels are high. He said he’s pumping out baby red blood cells like crazy.
What was the red cell count before surgery? 5% is super low although it does sound like he is making new cells. Did he say what the total protein was? It sounds like he lost quite a bit of blood since a normal pre-op PCV is about 40-55%. The only other thing that causes numbers that low is autoimmune hemolytic anemia which requires immunosuppressive drugs to treat and is rare in larger breed dogs.
As long as he is no longer bleeding he should be fine but it does take about 10 days to replenish red blood cell stores.
Pam
Thanks for the reply Dr. Pam. Unfortunately Leo passed at the vet's office today, see the post here.
Karen
Tri-pug Maggie survived a 4.5 year mast cell cancer battle only to be lost to oral melanoma.
1999 to 2010
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