Last Friday evening, sweet Ralphie started to have loose bloody stools which continued to worsen over the weekend. By Sunday night, he was lethargic and had to be rushed to the emergency vet. His labs showed a low blood glucose, hypotension, and suspected sepsis. The ICU vet recommended considering humane euthanasia if things did not start to take a turn for the better.

Overnight, he had a slight improvement so we continued to monitor. That same morning, I decided to leave it up to Ralphie if he wanted to fight, or to peacefully say goodbye.

That same afternoon, the vet called to share that he decided to turn a corner and had stabilized. He was taken off vasopressors (blood pressure stabilizing medications) and had even started to eat again. They wanted to run some more labs to try and figure out the cause which ended up being protein-losing enteropathy (PLE). This can be well controlled with diet changes and other supportive measures leading to a good long-term outcome.

Unfortunately, all of these events came about less than one week after I was laid off of work. Any contributions and/or prayers are welcome!