Please Please Please

Please pray (or meditate or make wishes or whatever) for my dog, Max. For the past several days, he's been very lethargic, won't eat much more than dirt, and has been losing weight as a consequence. Today we took him to the vet, thinking that this whole thing had gone on a little too long to be a simple tummy ache. It turns out he's severely anemic...his gums are practically white! Based on a simple test, they think his red blood cell percentage is only about 10%--it should be closer to 35%. If it drops much more, his brain and heart won't be receiving enough oxygen, and he could die. We won't know until the morning what his actual cell count is (and whether or not he'll need a blood transfusion). Until then, he's on a steroid and an antibiotic (the vet thinks it's probably an auto-immune disease), and I'm freaking out that the slightest stress will kill him.

So please, keep him in your thoughts tonight. <3

[update]: The vet called a few minutes ago, and it looks like it's probably auto-immune. His white cells are a little elevated, his red cells are at 10.8%, and his platelets are normal. He seems a little bit perkier since he's been on the steroids though, and he hasn't had any collapses or fainting spells--both good signs. He's got another appointment on Friday morning to check his cell count again. She said we need to be pretty aggressive with this over the next several days, to get his red count up, but for now she seemed optimistic since he doesn't appear to be getting worse.