Pneumonia - Round 1

After New Year's eve, Stella was doing relatively well. She still spit up quite a bit, but managed to keep most of her IAMS puppy food down. She definitely had to be watched when she ate, as she would regularly switch bowls with Rufus, who preferred her puppy food to his, and she preferred his all natural raw food to the IAMS puppy food. In general though, I felt good leaving town for a family vacation in Hawaii, not worried about Stella's health. Amy was looking forward to a week of peace and quiet at home with the dogs, and didn't mind skipping the 14 hours of flying time either. I know - its Hawaii - but some people really HATE flying.

I had 6 voice mails when I landed in Honolulu. Before I could check them, my cell rang - it was Amy. Stella was at Falls Road Emergency Animal clinic - she had pneumonia.

Apparently, after I left for the airport early that morning, Stella had woken up and was very listless. She was breathing hard, and seemed like she felt horrible. Amy tried to get her to drink and eat, but she would only vomit. Over the next few hours, Stella continued to vomit up larger and larger piles of white phlegm, and continued to decline. By the time afternoon arrived, Amy had gone through an entire roll of paper towels cleaning up the phlegm, and had arranged a ride to take her and Stella over to Falls Road.

The vets there did X-Rays and determined she definitely had pneumonia. They put her into an oxygen chamber and gave her intravenious antibiotics. She would stay there until she improved, and all we could do was wait.

The following day the vet called and said she was improving and could probably come home that night. She would stay on antibiotics and also need to have steam treatments every morning and night, where Amy would have to pat her sides and try to get her to produce any more phlegm in her lungs.



The steam treatments seemed to help a lot, and between those and the antibiotics, Stella was good as new by the time I returned. She was full of energy and acting like a normal 6 month old puppy should. Unfortunately - that wouldn't last for long.