A depressing prognosis

We took her in Saturday to an internal medicine vet. He was wonderful: very informative and took the time to answer all the questions we posed. He said her lungs sounded fine, so no problem with recurring pneumonia. That was great news. Unfortunately, the meeting went emotionally downhill from there.

She could have cancer, aspergillosis, or chronic rhinitis but of course we won't know which of those without further tests. He recommended first getting a CT scan to see her head and throat structurally. It may show tumors or damage caused by aspergillosis. If the scan looks clean (or doesn't), they'd do a rhinoscopy to see inside the nasal cavities (they may see spores from aspergillosis). If it is cancer, he said radiation is better (and more expensive) than chemo. We've already decided we won't put her through that.

Aspergillosis—what an awful disease! From what I've read, it sounds more prevalent in younger dogs, which I find curious. Why would younger dogs (they specifically did not say puppies) be more affected? At any rate, it's a fungus that eats away at the nasal cavities and can move into the brain. If they see this on the rhinoscopy, they'd scrap out her nasal cavities trying to get as many of the spores as possible and the flush with an antifungal wash. He said he recommends three procedures, although they once did six on a dog and still found it unsuccessful. Plus Lucy could go through all of this and have it come back. His assistant said it is quite a painful procedure and the dog goes home with a pain patch...only to return to the hospital to have it done over again. The treatments run around $2500 a piece.

The tiny bit of information I've seen on rhinitis directs me back to aspergillosis. We're finding this overwhelming.

Lucy is 11 and if we're lucky she'll be with us another 2-3 years. I don't regret putting her through the back surgery despite the long recovery. But I don't think I can put her through the trauma of treatments for what she may be suffering from now. I don't feel it's fair to her, but I will talk to Lucy's regular vet and a neighbor (who is a vet tech) for their input. Perhaps a naturopathic vet may be an alternative. I just don't know.