Bruce’s Fight

Most of you know me Emily, and if you know me there is a larger chance you know Bruce. Bruce is my better half. The light of our life. And if you’ve met him you know there is nothing ordinary about our sweet and gentle giant.

Bruce very early on in his life was diagnosed with three different heart defects. Despite all the odds at every cardiologist appointment Bruce was always met with “his heart is still going strong, we predict a full and long life ahead.” He beat the odds, Every. Single. Time.

Fast forward to a year ago, 4 year old Bruce was getting ready to enjoy his summer when he went for his annual vaccines, 3 of them. Within hours of receiving the vaccines he was pulling all his hair out scratching. We all got up at 3 am knowing something wasn’t right. He was into the vet later that day and we were told to start an allergy medication for seasonal allergies, something Bruce had never had.

Over the next few days Bruce turned his nose up at his food, something he never does. We called them back and were told maybe he’s just not feeling the greatest right now and to try wet food. We did, he ate it, but something didn’t feel quite right. I wanted to wean him off the wet food and we did, he went back to his kibble and seemed okay. He finished the first dose of allergy medication and no more symptoms came up. The vets suggested maybe it was just an exposure to one plant he didn’t agree with and he did not need to continue with the allergy medication.

Over the next few months, sometimes he would stop eating his dry kibble again, but with a little bit of wet food he would go back to eating, we weren’t concerned and neither were our vets. Bruce has always had a large appetite for fruits and veggies and that occasional time dad would share a small piece of bacon. Bruce ate well. He was vibrant. He ran and played with us every single day. I could probably count on my one hand the amount of days Bruce missed a walk and it usually had to do with crazy weather. The amount of blizzards we ran into - those will forever be some of my most cherished memories.

While all of this was happening and with the introduction of wet food Bruce’s teeth began to get tartar. This was surprising as we brush his teeth but chalked it up to the wet food, only it seemed to come on particularly fast, we bought every tooth brush, tooth paste, dental wipes, dental bones, vegetarian- bones we could and started brushing his teeth twice daily.

About a month ago he started leaving some kibble in his bowl when he was done. We didn’t want him to lose more weight so we switched a cup of kibble for a cup of wet food. He began eating it all again. But it made us worry that his teeth were bothering him.

Two weeks ago Bruce drank from a rain puddle outside, something we deterred him from. Within thirty minutes he threw up and I called the vet, I thought he was drinking puddle water because maybe his cold water was bothering his teeth, so I asked for a referral to a dentist. This was a decision that was very hard for us to make as Bruce is not supposed to go under due to his heart.

Then Bruce threw up again, they told us to restrict all food and water and give him 24 hours to recover. He did. And he went back to eating his kibble. But it was time to talk about this dental procedure so he went into the vets on Friday and pre-surgical blood work was run.

Saturday at 8am we got a phone call he needed to be brought back into the vets, his blood work showed a large amount of toxins and more tests needed to be run. On Monday at 8am on his day off our vet called to tell us Bruce’s urine showed enormous amounts of protein and we needed to get him to a hospital right away to be treated and hooked up to IV fluids.

Nik picked me up from work and we drove to a specialist hospital in Mississauga.

They told us Bruce had to be admitted. Terrified and trusting the specialist we agreed. We don’t regret that as we were all trying to do what was best for Bruce. But Bruce, hating being away from us, declined. They called us and said “if you can get him to eat, drink, pee and poo at home he’s better off with you.”

We picked him up, our boy who was just running in the park the day before. Lifeless he lay in our back seat, but he gave me one little lick on my hand, something he never does, and we drove home to keep him comfortable.

He came home with a ton of meds, with a follow up in a week of more tests. First plan try to treat with antibiotics, second plan try to treat with immunosuppressants. We are still on plan one and awaiting more tests to be run this Tuesday.

Bruce has been given the diagnosis of Chronic Kidney Failure; with a few possible underlying causes thrown in - which is where they are running more tests.

He has been trying to keep his spirits up at home, lots of sleeping, can barely walk to the end of the street, but still fighting to be here despite whenever is going on in his body and how nauseous the medications are making him.

I have spent the last week researching his condition, then I started researching how the immunosuppressants might help, which brought me to reading about misdiagnosis’ and dialysis.

I can’t give up on him. I understand that CKF is fatal and the time the vet has given us left is short, but if anyone can beat the odds, if anyone could be that shot in the dark miracle pup - it’s Bruce.

At this time we have declined a biopsy of his kidneys as the risk is too high to put him under, but there are more tests, there are more treatments and if he has been misdiagnosed there is possibly more time.

If you can help us in helping Bruce be here longer, it would mean everything to us. As you can probably tell we do everything together. We are a pack. And we want to do everything in our power to help him get better.

From the bottom of our hearts thank you for any contribution you can make for keeping our son here with us earth side.

Love Emily, Nik, Ben, Beth and Bruce♥️