A Human I Believe Contracted Canine Parvovirus....

Well, this has been the worst week of my life. You see, for mother's day I was given the choice of any puppy I wanted. Well, I finally found the perfect little puppy at a breeder nearby, a very cute yellow lab. He was not old enough to come home with us, so we waited patiently - well, okay, not so patiently - but when the day came....I was sooo excited to go get "puppy".

He was such a cuddly and playful little guy. We came home and introduced him to our 6yr old chihuahua "Scrappy"....she was not pleased. So, we kept those two away from each other until she was to realize that "Buddy" (the new puppy's name) was going to stay. He was such a smart little guy, I taught him in three days to ring a bell tied to the back door whenever he needed to use the restroom. So, as far as puppies go - we had very few accidents inside.

On day two of bringing Buddy home, he began to throw up and developed diarreah. Poor little guy, I figured he was really missing his mama. But, Buddy just seemed down. He didn't want to play, but did if someone wanted to play with him. So, I took him to the local vet. The vet tested for worms, and asked a few questions. He said they didn't have a Parvovirus test kit on hand, but he didn't think it was Parvo. Well, he was wrong. The following day, Buddy got worse and began to refuse to eat or drink. His diarreah got worse and bloody. I began to research Parvo online and found out that he needed to by hydrated as much as possible so his own body could fight off the virus. My darling hubby and I forced pedialyte down him, and even gave him pedialyte enemas. It almost seemed to be working as Buddy stopped throwing up. By Wednesday night, he still seemed soooo tired - but still kept trying to get out of his kennel to use the bathroom outside. During the early morning on Thursday, Buddy passed. (I will forever miss you Buddy).

My husband began to complain Wednesday night of his stomache not feeling well. Thursday afternoon, I came home from dropping Buddy's body off at the vet for cremation, to find my husband shivering on the sofa. His fever was 102.5 degrees, he was sick. Everything I read online stated humans can not get canine parvovirus. But my husband was very sick with diarreah, fever, chills, sweats, and a terrible stomache ache. He wanted to go to the emergency room, so we did. They hydrated him, told us it was the stomache flu and sent us home. He still didn't feel good, so we tried to just keep him comfortable at home and do all the regular flu stuff. Meanwhile, I was cleaning everything in the house with bleach and throwing out anything Buddy had touched if it couldn't be bleached.....you see we still have the 6yr old chihuahua.

We went to bed around 11:30pm on Friday night - and about 12:30am my husband woke me. He was scared and his heart rate was going from 150s to 60s by the minute.....he was in atrial fibulation. (we happen to have a pulse oximeter we bought when his mom had lung cancer). I rushed him back to the emergency room, where they stablized him and ran blood test to find out that his potassium level had dropped very low. We explained to the doctor that our 6 week old puppy just passed of Parvo, could it be possible with my husband's suppressed immunity, that he could have gotten it. The doctors confirmed that humans can not get canine parvovirus. (I kept thinking in the back of my mind that humans weren't supposed to get h1n1 aka swine flu either). Well, to shorten this very long blog....they admited my husband, kept him on i.v. fluids which still wasn't getting better. By Sunday night they began antibiotics which made the difference. The pain went away almost immediately. His fever broke and he began to heal. He had a CT scan which revealed there was some type of bacteria infection, and we will follow up in two weeks with a colonoscopy to see what caused the infection. (I still believe with my husband's immunity issues, he had canine parvovirus).

Now let me tell you why I think my husband was a rare case and was suseptible to canine parvovirus. He served our country in Afghanistan during the Gulf War. He was given anthrax vaccine, he was given pyridostigmine bromide, he was possibly exposed to depleted uranium, his gas tape had gone off (one time he remembers lying on his cot with gas mask on, praying and saying his good byes to all his family). When they returned, he knew guys who lost their hair, lost their teeth and died. He contracted 5 different illnesses all at once (mono, jaundice, cat scratch fever, hepititis, and something else)....which the doctors told him was very rare for this to happen. So, obviously he does have a suppressed immunity. And also, the other 4 of us living in the home, handled and cared for Buddy more than my husband did.....and none of us got the slightest bit sick.

Well, that's my evidence - I'll leave the question out there - can humans contract canine parvovirus? I believe the very ill can. (Oh yeah, where'd Buddy get the virus? We think from his vet visit the Friday before we picked him up - he had the parvo vaccine that day).

My thoughts during this whole ordeal have been.....what a shame that many give their lives in war - and many others are still giving their life, just slowly day by day. A friend of mine once said "It's almost a blessing for a soldier to not come home from war."