More from Dale's email:
"Sometime in April, she began having some trouble with one of her legs and thought we'd better take her to the vet to see if there was anything we could do. We were again surprised to see she had gained another 2 pounds. The vet put her on a short course of Tamadol to help with the pain in her leg (which did go away for awhile) and she seemed more her old self again. A couple of weeks ago, I took a short trip to Madeline Island and when I returned, I just noticed how heavy she was. We scheduled an appointment for the next day and she had ballooned to 68 pounds. At this point, the vet did some tests (urinalysis, blood) to try to understand what was happening, but speculated that it was some sort of liver disease. Somehow, her system wasn't able to push the water through the liver so it "leaked" out into her gut. The resulting water retention was the culprit for the wight gain. He did an abdominal tap and took off 1/2 gallon of fluid. She was much more comfortable, but clearly not well. We scheduled her this past Monday for an ultrasound and possible liver biopsy to get a clearer picture of what was going on. The ultrasound showed quite clearly that she has cirrhosis of the liver, probably caused by the 8 years of phenobarbitol she has been on to control her seizures. The liver was small and dense and three doctors confirmed that it likely was cirrhosis."
Above art is Black Lab and Moon by Angie Store
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