Misty's Ilness

On August 8th 2005 my mom noticed something different about Misty. Whenever someone would go to the back door or get something out of the kitchen , Misty would hear the noise , then jump out of the chair & run to your feet . Or when someone would ring the door bell, she would get so excited & start barking. Misty had not been doing that like usual , and one day my mom saw her run to the back gate & stop, and then Misty fell . My mom was like this is not good sign, so my sister and I took Misty to the vet to get her checked. We asked to get her blood tested & get some x-rays to see if there were any problems. When the blood work results came back, the vet came in the room with a dull look on his face, so we knew something was wrong with Misty. The vet told us that Misty's blood count was below 27%; that is not normal for a dog. She was losing oxygen in her red blood cells & white cells. The vet gave us some options, like to give her a blood transfusion to give that extra boost to her red blood cells. He said that there was an 80% chance she would make it though & a 1% chance that she could die. He gave us two other options: to either put her down or put her on some meds such as Prednisone. She took meds for about few weeks, and nothing improved, there was no change for her. My mom thought it would be her last weekend, so we gave her give a dose of blood to see how well she did. I did some research online, and we figured she had some kind of Anemia or Lymphedema. She would just lay there & not move at all. Losing blood & oxygen is not good. She was very very weak, she would not eat her food, she didn't go to the bathroom much. My mom thought about hand feeding her food, but it didn't work. Then we tried what you use for puppies to nurse them with a syringe, nipple & we put warm milk out for her to drink. So I did that for her until she would eat on her own & when she would feel better, it worked. Then a month went by and she was getting better & better each day . She started to go outside without me carrying her . She now runs in the kitchen when she hears food & she is back to her normal self. She scared me & I cried & cried. I didn't want to lose my baby, she's such a sweetheart. I didn't want to put her down!!! She's 9 yrs old but there are some things she can't do anymore. We limit her activities such as walking, getting hyper, stuff like that ; she sleeps a lot!! Hopely she will die as an old dog not because of her illness.