Brantlees PLE

Update- 09/29/2020
Brantlee passed away in my arms of what we believe was either a stroke or heart attack 
update 09/10/20
on Sunday 09/05/20 I took Brantlee to the ER for heavy breathing. The ER vet said he had pericardial effusion and then told me to euthanize him because there was nothing they could do.. long story short, had his regular specialist who is a cardiologist and internal medicine specialist redo his ultrasound for me. Turns out he has no pericardial effusion, he has a normal sized heart, and his systolic function is normal

Update- throughout these past few months, I have just been trying to keep Brantlee stable using supplements and all of his vets recommendations. He has been misdiagnosed with Addison’s disease, which his test results actually show he DOES NOT have, yet his vet put him on treatment for it. He is currently just on prednisone. After speaking to new vet techs and specialists in DC, it looks like his pancreas has been the issue all along. He basically has chronic pancreatitis now since they let this go on for so long. We are seeing a new holistic vet that will help with diet and supplements.
Update 03/04/2020 Brantlee’s liver values are not so good now. His proteins are still below 3.0, which is extremely low. Since he is unresponsive to all the treatments they have tried on him, he has stopped taking all but one medication. As a last effort, The University of Florida’s nutritionist and internal medicine specialist have come up with a custom human food diet for him. Update 02/19/2020 Brantlee’s biopsies came back today. It is confirmed that he has a severe case of protein losing enteropathy. His protein levels dropped to 3.0 and his cholesterol dropped to 6 when it should be at least 200. At this point, they are considering Brantlee as unresponsive to treatment, so we are weening him off of a couple of medications in hopes that it helps. We will continue to exhaust all treatments for him. Update 02/12/2020 At Brantlee’s check up, his proteins were still extremely low. His cholesterol was also at 15, when a normal cholesterol in dogs is 200. He’s also low in B vitamins. We are running the scope in his belly tomorrow to see if there’s something we’re missing. That’s another $2000 procedure Update 02/08/2020 After being hospitalized overnight, Brantlee had severe lethargy while I was visiting him at the hospital. He would stare at the wall, then his eyes would roll back in his head. He was hardly responding to anything I’d say. He’s also down to only 34 pounds. So, we decided it would be best to bring him home where he is happy and comfortable, and in the case of any respiratory issues, we would have him put down considering he’s been on 4-5 different treatments and he’s currently on 8 medications. BUT Once he got home, he was back outside looking for lizards like it was nothing. We’re praying for a miracle for him!❤️ hope he pulls through this. My little man is A CHAMP! Update- Brantlee has been back to the hospital several times with liquid diarrhea and vomiting since being discharged. Today, his specialist said he's worried about "my sweet puppy" because his gastrointestinal tract is worse than when I brought him in. We are basically having a hard time killing the cryptosporidium in his GI tract because of the fact that the PLE is causing his gut to be so inflamed that the bacteria is living in the has pockets and crevasses of the inflammation of his Gi tract. This also means, he's not retaining many proteins at all. He is also not digesting much of anything. Most of what he eats, he's vomiting up. So after calling about 15 different compound pharmacies, we have now ordered him the very rare/new medication called nitazoxinide to aggressively fight this bacteria. This is basically our last option for him ❤️ Brantlee has been diagnosed with Protein Losing Enteropathy. His GI tract basically is having a hard time holding onto proteins. They’re not sure the cause of it. Could be cancer, could be heart disease, could be from parasites, there’s lots of different things. After noticing diarrhea and vomiting and bloating, I took him to the vet. They said he was very dehydrated and very low in proteins. So they recommended that I leave him there for a few hours for treatment, so I did. His proteins then dropped even lower, but they told me to feed him wet food.  After giving him dinner, his belly got extremely swollen, so I followed my gut and rushed him to the ER at midnight where they said he needed to stay with them on 24/7 supervision because he was full of fluids, and if they got into his chest or limbs, it could be really bad. He has been hospitalized since Friday January 17, 2020. Hoping to bring him home tomorrow, January 20, 2020. In total, all of these vet bills have costed over $4000. I am a former college student from The University of Florida who already has over $35,000 in student loans. I have almost maxed out credit cards to save him, as well as taking out a care credit to save my dog’s life because he is MY LIFE, but I’m not sure how I’m going to pay the bills. Anything helps.