A Worrying Week

Morning fellow animal lovers,

Just wanted to air out my sadness this week as I'm feeling pretty down. Our old Romanian rescue girl Dotty, who is about 11(???), has been feeling poorly the last couple of weeks and alarmingly off her food. So unlike her! She'd been sick a lot too and licking her legs alot (she has allergies to all sorts)

We took her to the vets and she was given antisickness injection, antibiotics and a steroid injection to help with the licking. The steroid injection made her a bit weird and was widdling 3 times in the night - not like her at all, but you know what steroids can be like!

She started being sick again so too her back and got a continuation of antibiotics and another anti sickness injection and omperazole for acid stomach...she was sick again once the injection wore off. So they thought an ultrasound to check her stomach for any tumours etc would be a good idea. She had that on the Thursday....all good - no signs of any nasties, did an xray of her chest too to check that....all good aswell. So, more omeprazole for her and see how she goes over the weekend. It was all ok until monday she was off her food again and eating grass again...

Monday late on she was sick with three pools of blood. It was awful. I thought maybe the return of her terrible terrible gastroenteritis she had in October last year. But after she was sick with that she was quite happy, ate her dinner and slept well. Went to the vet first thing the next morning and a referral straight to Davies the specialists which are luckily only half an hour away.

Davies admitted her and the specialists have done her a thorough ultrasound of her stomach and intestines and found that she has a small section of thickening on her intestine and slightly inflammed lymph nodes. They took needle aspirations of both areas to test. Her stomach was absolutely fine. They said it very much looks like cancer in the characteristics of it. and could also be lymphoma. The needle aspiration samples should confirm. Needless to say we were gutted.

We love Dotty so much, she has been through hell in romania - strangled and beaten with scars and broken ribs to prove it. She had horrendous heartworm and overcame that being the first dog in the UK to have heartworm surgery in our first 2 weeks of owning her. She recovered brilliantly from that and they said she had a strong heart. She's since had a terrible allergy develop where her paws were raw and peeling off, bleeding bottom etc etc and that was sorted by apoquel allergy tablets and overnight the allergy side effects seemed to stop. She eventually got weened off those tablets two years ago and has been fine having her sensitive stomach diet after we had her proper allergy tested. Last september after our trip to wales she had haemorrhaging gastroenteritis and we nearly lost her - blood everywhere but she recovered after a night with specialist care. Then only a month later her right eye had swollen and bulged out of her head! Another out of hours emergency trip and luckily it was only an abscess behind the eye that antibiotics sorted. Despite all of that she is the kindest, sweetest, most loving and loyal dog you could ask for. And now this...I cried alot on Tuesday night, she just doesnt deserve it.

Wednesday afternoon and the results came back...NEGATIVE?! no signs of cancer in her swollen lymph nodes or the tiny piece of intestine they sampled. A slight bit of relief and a bit of hope. So what now? In the meantime she had antisickness tablets for 4 days and has been back to her waggy tailed self. However, the vet has said the intestine looks very much like cancer and could have been the small sample showing a false negative. She said all the characteristics of cancer/tumour are there. The puking blood could be because she has been sick alot and made her tummy sore. She had also eaten an iris leaf obviously thinking it was grass so that cant have helped.

The options are:

1) Surgery to remove the tiny section of intestine and biopsies of different parts of her intestine and stomach to get a better picture of what is happening. If it is cancer they would know exactly what type and what we are dealing with.

2) Leave it a few weeks and re-ultrasound scan but in that time it could grow or even develop scar tissue and could show another inconclusive ultrasound and then what?! Surgery option.

3) Treat her with steroids to see if that has an affect over a few weeks but that could also hide diagnostic signs and she could have an awful time on the steroids again. Then what??

After weighing up the pros and cons, asking about the risks (she is low risk for surgery despite her age as her bloods are good and she has a strong heart and they operate on much much sicker dogs than dotty), there is a risk of the surgery rupturing and then blood poisoning etc and death, but they said it is very low risk for dotty, plus it is a very small section they are doing and the rest of the bowel looks ok on ultrasound. So it is the first week of recovery after the op which we will have to keep a very close eye on her. So we have decided to go with the surgery which will go ahead on Tuesday. Can you believe it though - Friday, she got a fungal? infection or an infection in her ladybits so had to go to the vet to get some cream and another type of antibiotic to take over the weekend and a swab to see if she needs antifungal meds - that will come back on monday. Good news is that infection seems to now have cleared up. My poor girl!

So Monday when swab results are back I have to ring specialists and they will confirm Tuesday for surgery and we have to take her in early. Luckily, it turns out one of our old vets from when we lived down in Fleet is actually going to do her surgery. She sat in on dotty's original heartworm operation and knows her well. Since then she trained to be a surgeon with the specialists. She was very good and also helped to treat my poorly chinchilla with dental issues (who died a month before we got Dotty). I know she will be in the best hands. After the surgery she will have a 3 day stay and hopefully home if all is looking well after that.

I'm now trying to enjoy this weekend with her. I feel sick worrying about the surgery, but if we don't go ahead with it, it could be much worse and we could regret not having done the best we could, earlier. But what if the surgery goes wrong?! All this kind of thing is going through my head. I'm just trying enjoy the time with her this weekend. I've slept downstairs on the bed with her everynight and had cuddles. She has just gone inside as it is a bit hot outside this morning. I can't imagine being without her. She has been such a comfort to me throughout the past 5 years - from her knowing when I'm going to have a migraine and sit with me, to her comforting me when I've been upset with the horrid neighbours, to other medical problems I've had and to being my company whilst my husband has been working away.

I'm going to be a complete worried wreck on Tuesday. I'm just hoping for the best, as she deserves it.

 

Bea on the left and Dotty on the right, last year. Bea is dotty's pup who came over with her from Romania....she has had her own set of issues and only has one eye.

 

Sending big hugs to both you and Dotty and will keep everything crossed for Tuesday. You both need some good news.

 

Thank you both. Will do. She's currently snoozing in bed again.