Sad times.

Hello everyone,
Many of my blogging friends will know that for the past 7 and half years Kevin and I have been the proud parents to our furry lad Ben the border collie. The journey with Ben was not easy and way back In The beginning I thought he was too broken to keep but love as they say concores all .. Well our adventure and it has been an adventure really started with Ben after a fateful day on the stairs when I was crying my eyes out telling him I thought I'd have to give up and rehome him. Ben walked unaided up the stairs lol it was more a climb .. Came up to me and licked my hand it was the first real sign of acceptance of love he had ever shown. From that day a pact was made and he never broke it.

Ben then and the Ben now are like two different dogs as a pup he was a nippy wee devil always into mischief  , bites , scratches, etc Now he is the most loving dog I've seen. I call out Ben I need a cuddle and he comes running to give me one. He is a very intelligent dog most border collies are.

Anyway the reason for his post is really to share some pretty devastating news my dear sweet boy is very very ill and in the veterinary hospital and the future looks bleak.. On Saturday we notice Ben was very unwell it came on so quickly on Friday he was bouncing about as he normally does with excited Friday. That night he didn't want to move off the bed to let Kevin in so we all cuddled in.
I was having a bad pain night so didn't sleep and could hear Ben was a bit panty thinking it was the heat I didn't really think too much about it.  At six ish in the morning I come worried about his panting so I woke Kevin normally when Kevin goes to bathroom Ben nicks. His bed space on Saturday he didn't move.  We tried various ways to get him to move all failing so in the finish up I called Sharon our sister to come over knowing if he didn't respond to her it was a vet job.

Before we saw Sharon , Kevin and I coaxed him down the stairs and he went out to pee. For some reason Kevin and I went out to watch and the results terrified us Ben was peeing blood.
We took a sample for vets and I called emergency vets..We let him wander and pee at vets and it was worse thicker blood.

The vet did some examinations and he was running a huge fever when  his tempeture was taken and at that point we had to make a decision the vet asked if we wanted  him to start steroids they have to be on a high dose this was to help suppress the white blood cells as they are attacking Ben's reds cells and this is making him very anaemic . The vet thinks he has a auto imunne illness. I was all set for Ben to go to sleep tonight as the news this morning was very bad. However Ben's own vet has asked us to keep going another 24 hours to see if Ben responds to the treatment. Tonight we went into see Ben and at first he was very flat and did not really respond to me but then he realised it was mum and stood up and welcomed us quietly but a welcome , he would not eat for me but he was happy to see us and responded positively to Kevin and I. He would not take food from Kevin either but he's very ill just now and we will need to see what tomorrow results are he's far from out the woods and he may not come home we are very worried and upset but we trust our vet so we are being guided by him however we have made it clear we won't have the same journey we had with Kira.

Kevin and I are so grateful for all the love, support, prayers and friendship we have had since this horrible illness first started with Ben thank you xxxx


Ps please forgive me if I'm not as active in my DT work and comments. XXXX