Poor Mar Dog!!

About three and a half weeks ago Marley had to go to the vet because of a pulled neck muscle. She got put on huge doeses of meds which seemed to make her better. After a couple days Chris and I noticed her belly seemed to be getting bigger. I took her back to the vet because we were concerned about that. They thought it was related to the neck and she'd be fine. We continued with meds and daily phone calls with the vet. Marley had good days and bad days. Our vet wanted us to go to a neurologist speciaist in IL, but we kept telling her that Marley's neck pain seemed to be gone and we were concerned that this was a new issue. She continued to tell us the bloating was most likley from the large doses of steroid. She consulted with the specialist she wanted us to see who agreed with her treatment plan. Last week Wednesday, Marley's appitite went down hill and she lost a lot of weight. Sunday night we called the vet to tell her about Marley only to have our call go unanswered. Monday the vet called to see how Marley was doing. I let her know we called Saturday and Sunday and nobody called us back. At that point her breathing was fast, she still wasn't eating a whole lot, her abdomen was big and her hind legs appeared to be swelling. On Wednesday, Chris called out the the vet and demanded that they run blood work to make sure her kidneys and liver was functioning OK. The blood results were through the roof! She also was down to 63 pounds (she weighed 71 when this all started!) Her liver enzymes were high as well as her protein levels. We had to take her to the animal hospital in Waukesha. They had to admit her to do some tests and ultrasound. It turns out she was loosing A LOT of protein (normal is below 1, Marley's were 31!) Because of the protein loss it was causing normal fluid in her body to move into places it shouldn't (like her legs and abdomen.) We got a call yesterday that Marley had not gotten any worse, but would still need to stay another night. We went up for a visit yesterday. Her poor belly is shaved (for the ultrasound), her leg was shaved (probably for a blood draw), and she had an IV line in her front leg. We got to take her outside and then she ate!! We were really happy to see her eat and see that the swelling was going down in her legs and maybe her belly too. At that point they couldn't give us any more results about her protein levels. They called this morning and her levels were still in about the same place, so she is going to have to spend her third night at the hospital. We are really hoping that the meds they have started will help her get her protein levels back on track and we will be able to bring her home soon!