The move to Italy was very traumatic and after 2 weeks Sharav seemed very ill. A local vet took many tests and advised Sharav was so anaemic he needed a blood transfusion and the chances of survival looked very poor. We were further advised that a transfusion should not be given without specialist examinations to find the cause. The specialists could not (would not?) see us over the weekend so we returned to the house to face Sharav's almost certain demise. We tried to feed him small pieces of liver and other food and prayed hard.
On Monday onwards we made many visits to a facility a long journey from the house. Both the journey and the horrid exhaustive tests left Sharav permanently nervous and terrified of car trips. The tests revealed no internal injuries and all organs were sound and in working order for a dog of 12 years old. They seemed confused by the fact that his bone marrow was still producing red blood cells although he had suffered severe anaemia. Surely they should have considered an autoimmune disease? It can be triggered by emotional trauma. It was only later, when Sharav was recovering (see blog entry below), that a local vet reviewed the stats that it was diagnosed correctly - Sharav should have died. I recently read of a beautiful 8 year old Saluki who did not survive even given correct emergency treatment. Mercifully, prayers and TLC worked in our case. He is the last of the line - so utterly loved. More about this disease will be posted up soon. Anyone who has had a case please respond.....
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