Member News

Hope everything works out ok.

Glad your Dad is doing better. Sounds like he was pretty lucky.

We had a bit of drama over the weekend with my roommates dog. I am pretty worried about this given he lost his wife last October. Anyway here is the detail in his own words and I will try to keep updating as this goes on:

For those of you who have not already been part of this drama, let me start at the beginning:

Last Thursday morning, my fur-baby Scamp did not finish her breakfast. If you know her, you know that this is something that hasn't happened in over 2-3 years. She's a beagle. She eats anything in reach of her snout and that will fit into her mouth (except squash and dill pickles).

On seeing the not-empty bowl, my housemate Dana (who is pretty much a dog expert) suggested holding the contents and giving it back to her for dinner. Well, at dinner, she didn't want it, either.

Friday, I scrambled an egg for her breakfast, which she eagerly wolfed, so I figured she was just having some tummy issue, and that would be that. Later in the morning, I found a puke-spot (not an uncommon occurrence) with a bit of the egg, and some kind of longish dried grass-straw-plant matter in it. Figured that she'd eaten some kind of yuk during a potty walk (again, not uncommon), and she'd gotten hold of something that was the cause of the tummy issue, and continued to assume it wasn't a real problem. That evening, I tried her on kibble, which she refused again, and so I fed her another egg.

That evening, she couldn't make the jump up into our bed. I had to lift her, and she wasn't happy about being handled. Later, during the night, her breathing was rapid and extremely heavy, like a bellows, so hard that it actually woke me about 1 am, and I could not go back to sleep with her like that. After an hour of this, I got up and took her for a potty walk. She did her business, but it seemed like a painful strain for her. When we went back to my room, I found that she had had an "accident" in the bed from earlier. This was also a first-time event. She was trembling, and whining, and looked daunted at the prospect of having to make the jump to the bed, so I took her into the living room. Again, she couldn't seem to make the shorter jump to the sofa, so I lifted her up, and she yelped, growled and snapped at me. She never seemed to be able to get comfortable, sitting/lying in one spot or another for just a couple of minutes before deciding it wouldn't do, and moving to another. She eventually settled down (on the opposite side from me), I waited with her until I couldn't stay awake any longer (~5am), and went to bed, leaving her in the living room.

Between ALL of this, which did NOT seem to abate as Saturday morning progressed, I finally "pushed the button" and took her to the animal ER favored by my vet, getting there ~2:30pm. After triage, and a wait, their vet looked her over some more, while getting more details from me, and got the diagnostics party rolling: an x-ray to see if she had swallowed something solid, which would be in her stomach or intestines, followed by blood work for infections, etc. After the x-ray, she put on the metaphorical brakes.

The x-ray showed that the pericardial sac surrounding Scamp's heart was full of fluid, putting pressure on it. She asked me more questions about her recent behavior, and also taking her current behavior (the dragging at her lead, tail-wagging, etc), the vet came to the conclusion that the heart issue was separate from the GI problem, and while it certainly needed to be dealt with, draining it could be postponed for a few days, if I chose to wait until after other diagnostics could be done with higher-level specialists/scans that would not be available over the weekend. The bloodwork came back clean, and so as I decided to wait on the fluid drain, we were finally sent on our way with an anti-nausea shot and a tube of pro-biotic goop to help re-balance her gut flora.

We got home about 9pm, and Dana gave her some of the goop, while I busied myself with food & meds (not having prepared for being out that long).

Saturday night wasn't much better than the previous one, and she was restless, trembling as if in pain all night, and still breathing laboriously.

Dana & I fussed over her all of Sunday, trying her on white rice with her kibble. She ate very tiny bits of both, but not a substantive meal in any way. Dana gave her the gut goop twice more, before she had to leave for an overnight work-related stay in the Villages.

I was afraid to lift Scamp into bed, so I set her up in the living room. She still wandered into the bedroom within minutes, but took almost a half-hour to make the jump into bed. Another night as previously described.

That was it as far as I was concerned. I called my vet as soon as they opened, and got over there in as good a time as I could make.

I love my vet, Dr. Scholl. I mean I LOVE my vet. Cat adored her, would not even CONSIDER any other vet, even after we moved further and further away from her clinic. When we got first got Scamp, Cat made me PROMISE that barring moving to the other side of the state or farther, I would NEVER take her to any other vet. Over the years, I have learned why.

The staff was already WAITING for us to arrive, no need to check in, just whisked us straight into a pre-prepped exam room, and Dr. Scholl was in to see her and get more details from me within 2 minutes of her vitals being taken. We talked about other possible issues, as Dr. Scholl looked at the x-rays and labs from Saturday, and took Scamp into the back for another x-ray. She was back very fast.

The fluid sac had expanded even further, putting even more pressure on Scamp's heart and closing off her trachea, which meant she wasn't getting enough air, even with her insane breathing. She told me that Scamp wouldn't last another 24 hours if "Something Wasn't Done". Her first thought was to get us back into my car and to a specialist, but as things turned out, there were none to be had. All of those (that my doc TRUSTED enough anyway) within range were SO booked up that would not willingly accept even an emergency case. Scholl told me, at this point, if this were HER dog (and she has several), she would be taking her to (I-forget-the-name) Clinic in GAINESVILLE for (such-n-such) testing.

At this point, I had to ask her about "triage". What were Scamp's realistic chances, dependent on all this stuff? I said I only have X dollars left on our medical credit card after paying for the ER visit, and I still had to pay HER bill. Would the treatment I could manage to pay for be enough? Scholl gave this some real thought. (Like I said, we love/loved her.) She said, she would do the fluid drain, one way or another, right away, and we'd see what that bought Scamp in improvement.

Dr Scholl went off to perform the draining procedure. Left in that exam room alone, the weight of it came down on me, even harder than before. I was probably gonna lose my little girl. The annoying, adorable, frustrating creature that had been my last link to Cat. My chest heaved, and I simply started to sob.

More than half-blinded by squinting, goop-filled eyes, I saw a blur, then felt a touch, then warmth. One of the techs had come into the room, and was HUGGING me! She then offered me a box of kleenex, and just waited for me to compose myself, patient, and with concern in her eyes. It wasn't but a few seconds later, that a SECOND tech hurried in, also armed with a kleenex box. She saw I was already getting support, so put her box down next to the first, and stayed. They both already knew Scamp & me from previous visits, and they knew that I had already lost Cat. Somewhere in there, I babbled something like, "I KNOW she's not a person, she's just an animal, but..." and I didn't get any farther. They both spoke of how Scamp had been my comfort and stood by me when I'd become alone, and other similar good things I can't even really recall now. They stayed with me, despite what else they should have been doing, until I was put back together, one bringing me another bottle of water.

You see why I love my vet?

Dr. Scholl came back and said that it had gone pretty well. She had pulled out 65cc's of fluid. (At Scamp's size, THAT is quite a LOT.) The pressure on the heart had been relieved, and the pressure on the trachea as well, so Scamp could breathe better already. She dashed off for a bit, and while waiting for her return, another tech brought Scamp back to me. She looked a bit goofy, with shaved patches on each side of her chest, but she looked better, pain-free, and in better spirits, wanting to jump into my lap and lick me.

The doctor returned, and had brought in a laptop to show me all of the different x-rays: Saturday and today's before and after shots. It was plain even to my untrained eye, once she explained what I was looking at. I could see where the space her lungs needed to use was being occupied by the fluid sac, and how her airway was squeezed thinner. Seeing it, I was surprised that she'd even made it to the doctor's office alive. She told me that Scamp's oxygen level had been down as low as 80%, when it should not be any lower than 96-7% Yikes. This was all just "buying us time", though.

Dr. Scholl told me this sort of pericardial sac-filling thing was most often seen in large breeds like mastiffs or great danes, and had a number of different causes in them, including cancer. SMALL dogs, though, almost NEVER had this problem, and it was usually NOT connected with all of the same causes. The only fix was to have the sac removed entirely, so it couldn't "fill up". She and one of the techs would start researching where we would be able to get that work done (unspoken comment: at a level I could afford). Monitor her closely, don't let her exert herself, and come back in a week, when we would see how fast the fluid was returning, and hopefully would have found a place to treat her.

Did I mention that I love my vet?

Oh, and the whole GI thing? Almost certainly a reaction to the other issues, not a thing of itself. We'll send you home with some low-irritant food for you to give her for a few days. That shouldn't be a real problem after that.

Drove home. Gave Scamp some of her new food, which she inhaled at light-speed. She's been resting on the bed here with my while I pound this out. She is JUST now starting to make some whiney noises for attention and a potty run, I would suppose, so her timing is impeccable.

I'll try to keep everyone informed as things progress.

rihannsu...so sorry you and your precious dog have to be going through this.  Please keep us informed on how things are progressing.  Sending lost of positive energy and light to you and your dog and I will be thinking of you both.