A Birthday Present?

Happy 33 to me. I'm not really in the mood for celebrating, with Blaze's recent diagnosis and the anniversary of Alec's death approaching. However, through a combination of denile of Blaze actually having GME (it is hard to accept a disease that is diagnosed by exclusion of other possible causes), and wanting to give him the best treatment options possible, I sent his records to a neurologist in Boston who is known as the expert on the disease. His answer? Probably not GME! He has recommended testing for some additional infectious diseases, which if positive are treatable and he can have a full recovery, or, if they are negative, he believes that Blaze has had a stroke, which while he may not ever recover his full neurological function, he shouldn't get worse, and he should be with us for a while still. On his advice, I stopped Blaze's GME medication, and if he does not relapse in the next few weeks he thinks we can safely assume Blaze is in the clear for this one. And that would be something to celebrate!

After showing all of this to Blaze's vet here in Portugal, she asked if she could send all of his records to another neurologist in Bern, Switzerland as well. So no matter what, Blaze seems to have a team of vets in 3 countries spaning 2 continents worried about his well-being, not many dogs can say that.