Deafness

Can any more happen to my girl? I hope not, unless it is getting healthy, healthy, healthy!

We took an extended weekend trip to south central Oregon, in the middle of nowhere where heat is the king...or is it deer flies?...or mosquitoes? Surprising, considering the conditions, it is an amazing area. We were in Paisley on Summer Lake which during the summer is dry. Nearby are natural hot springs, petroglyphs, bat caves, ice caves, big holes in the ground, birding, hiking, and mountain biking. I'm sure there is even more, but the heat prevented anything but a minimum of exploration or movement. The meteor showers weren't that spectacular, but sitting outside in a natural hot spring adds to the event, so one could hardly complain.

In the above picture taken at the cabin we stayed at in Paisley, Lucy looks alert and as if she can hear me. I doubt it. She was so sick there, or maybe it was just the unbearable heat, but she slept for nearly two days. On the way home, we stopped to do a quick ride around Timothy Lake near Mt. Hood. Lucy stayed in the van which parked under an umbrella of trees. When we returned from our ride, I let her out to join us for a swim in the lake.

It was then we realized Lucy had lost hearing in her other ear. There was no head shaking, no scratching, no tilting of the head, just plain no hearing. I felt like the bad dog owner with an ill-trained pooch. She would walk off and I'd call and she didn't respond.

I wasn't sure if the antibiotics she's taking for pneumonia could have caused the hearing loss, but when I spoke with the vet, she said no. She wanted Lucy back in, but what would they do? We'd just incurred huge vet expenses and I wasn't eager for more if they weren't absolutely necessary. She (Lucy) gave no sign of discomfort. By the time she was home, her energy and appetite were back, she's on two different wide-spectrum antibiotics—wouldn't they take care of any infection? The vet said probably, but told me to bring her in if anything in her demeanor changed.

We're using hand signals to communicate with her. Thank heavens she's been trained on them since a puppy. We just have to make sure she's looking our way. And once again, it reinforces the necessity for always having her on a leash. If it is an infection, the antibiotics should take care of it and her hearing will return. If it isn't...well, we'll have to work diligently at keeping her world interesting, stimulating and safe!

Antibiotics

Lucy is on two antibiotics: Clindamycin (150mg) and Baytril (86mg). Baytril is ridiculously expensive, but the combination of the two (or at least one of them!) is working as she seems more alert. She still isn't drinking, but after taking her in yet again, the vet thought she seemed hydrated enough.

We're supposed to visit friends in southern Oregon—almost to the California border and in the middle of nowhere. It makes me anxious to take a sick dog out in the toolies, but this is one of those spousal issues that I'm losing.

I switched to beef stock today to see if that will elicit more response, but it doesn't do the trick either. Why is she not drinking? What is it about the drugs or illness that makes her avoid water?

In mid-August, the vet wanted me to come in for another xray. Is it worth it at the price if she's feeling better? I'm going to ask several different sources.

Canine Pneumonia!

Unbelievable! As if this old girl hasn't had enough to deal with this past year, she now has pneumonia. The diagnosis has been a long time coming. The first clue something was amiss came mid-May when she started reverse sneezing. This is an odd phenomena (to me) as it sounds nothing like a sneeze, but rather a huge gathering or gasping of breath. It happened infrequently, but ongoing over a couple of months. Finally around the end of June, it was occurring regularly enough to warrant a vet visit.

When I brought her in the verdict was indecisive. Since Lucy's appetite and energy seemed okay, the vet put it down to (perhaps) an allergy. For a couple of days running, Lucy had a mucus-y nose and eyes. I mean goopy, like a child with a bad cold, but this vanished too along with the sneeze. By the end of July, I figured whatever was blooming and bothering her should be over its cycle and indeed, the reverse sneezing was diminishing.

Then came dry hacking. She sounded like a cat coughing up a fur ball. This time I called and spoke with the vet (a substitute), but she didn't seem very concerned. I was uncertain whether to push or not. After all, Lucy just had the surgery a year ago. Did I want to put her through tests for something we had no clue about? Not to mention, the possibly unnecessary expense... The vet told me to give it a couple of weeks. Here it is summer, so Lucy's shedding a lot. She has two little cuts on her that she's been tending by licking. So couldn't she be gagging on her fur?

Then the beginning of this week, her energy plummeted. Her dry hacks turned into wet, deep chest coughing. She tried to stand up and was so unsteady, I didn't know if she could do it. This time I rushed her in and the vet (another sub), on taking her temperature (102.5), decided to do a chest xray and take blood. She said I should take her temp again that night and if it topped 104 to take her to the emergency vet. Well, before bed her temp was 103.7. Our neighbor is a vet tech and I asked her if this constituted an emergency. She said if Lucy was breathing okay, to wait as that was high, but within range. We kept her in the basement (always cool), with ice packs and a cool, wet towel. We slept there too. I didn't sleep, of course, as I was listening to her every sound. By morning her temp was down to 103.

The blood test came back the following day. I don't know much about white blood counts or how they are measured, but Lucy's last white blood cell count was 8,000. This one was 16,000! The vet said this was only slightly out of normal range (which I guess goes to 15,000), but because it was double her normal, it was cause for concern. I brought Lucy back in and they gave her two different shots of antibiotics.

The xray needed to be sent out, but the vet showed it to us and Lucy's left lung (looking at the xray) was milky at the top. Their main radiologist was on vacation, so they had to send it to a sub. The sub went on vacation also, but took the xray with him. (Huh?) They couldn't reach him so wanted me to come in for another set that could be sent out to a third radiologist. Meanwhile, I'd brought Lucy back in for more antibiotic shots and they sent me home with Clindamycin and Baytril thinking these would "get" most bacterial pneumonia. Her temp was back in normal range.

Well, the long and short of it is they finally reached the vacationing radiologist and he said it was pneumonia. They are treating it as bacterial and if Lucy doesn't respond to the antibiotics, then she'll need a throat culture. After her shots and the orals, she is a bit more perky. I wouldn't come close to saying she's normal. Even though she's sleeping most of the time, when she is awake, she seems more alert.

The issue now is getting her healthy and keeping her hydrated. She's to be on antibiotics for 2-3 weeks and then they'll do another xray. For whatever reason, Lucy who normally drinks a couple bowls of water a day, is not even touching it—and it's hot and humid here. I'm drowning her food in 1 1/2 cups of water laced with low-sodium chicken stock. At a minimum, she's ingesting 3 cups a day. Now to get just a little more down her...