Polly’s Story

Age at diagnosis: 3 years 9 months

Breed: Miniature Wirehaired Dachshund

A year ago Polly started to appear unwell. I took her to the vets on several occasions over 4 days from Tuesday to Thursday. By Thursday she was circling and hacking really loud. The vet decided she must have something stuck in her throat, sedated her for a scan and then said they were closing and I had to drive her to an emergency vet, keeping her as warm as possible as she hadn't fully been brought round from the anaesthetic.

The emergency vet re-did the abdominal scans as the first vet hadn't sent them over and said they couldn't see anything in her stomach. They monitored her overnight and in the morning called to say they thought the area had caused a brain lesion due to her circling and blindness in one eye. When told she had this before they said she had a brain tumour or SRMA. They wanted to transfer her again to a hospital for an MRI. We asked how this would guide treatment and they said the treatment would be the same regardless, so we asked to start the steroids IV. Over the next 4 days we were in regular contact and I kept asking them to increase the dose. We brought her home for what we thought would be her final days, but she rallied round within a few days on prednisone 10mg.

The original vet was not happy with the high dose and by June she had been weaned off completely. In August she was off her back legs. We called the vet and asked for a referral to a neurologist. They told us not to give her steroids, but we felt we had nothing to lose and started her on 5mg prednisone again. She started to improve and never actually got too bad. She had an MRI which was unremarkable and was diagnosed with MUO.

She weaned slowly and got to 2mg by January 2026 alongside cyclosporine twice daily. She went off her legs in February as soon as her dose went to 1mg — within 2 days she was unable to move, go to the toilet or bark. She couldn't shake her head to shake her ears and was rubbing her face on soft furnishings to help her itch. She had another MRI which showed some lesions in the neck area and a spinal tap which had raised white cells. She was put back on 10mg prednisone and cytarabine and spent 4 days at the neurologist's. The first vet had told us she had IVDD due to the leg weakness.

She now has regular cytarabine subcutaneously and we are weaning off the steroids very slowly. She still has cyclosporine. She is struggling with the steroids more this time than last time — she has a pot-bellied appearance, weakness in her back legs and is very restless at times. She hasn't had her hair stripped in ages due to thin skin and it is thinning but long. She has dry skin on her body, mainly her ears — and she is extremely sassy as a result of being constantly watched and given in to at every turn! We feel very lucky to still have her and will care for her as long as she allows us to.

Polly is part of The Theo Project's canine meningitis registry - a growing global collection of MUE, MUO and SRMA stories shared to help families facing this diagnosis.