"Not Zeb. Please Don't Let It Be Our Zebby".Oct 8th
I notice in the morning just before I take the dogs on a morning beach walk that Zeb has blood in his eye. Actually in his eyeball. He is so excited to be going for a walk that I decide to go anyway ‘cos he can’t be feeling too bad.
We get back from the walk and Ron and I examine his eye and then call our regular vet – Erich Williams.
He tells is to come right on in. It’s a 40 min drive. He gives him a thorough exam and all his vitals are good. He checks the eye for trauma to the cornea with a fluorescent stain – no signs of trauma. Applies atropine to dilate the eye as it is spasming and is painful – he is now squinting (no walkies to distract him!).
He takes blood to run a CBC, blood chemistry and check for tick borne diseases and heartworm to rule out anything else that might cause the bleeding other than blunt trauma.
He prescribes Dermaxx (nsaid), Tramadol (opiod painkiller) and steroid eye drops.
That afternoon Zeb is not squinting and so seems comfortable.
Oct 9th
Zeb is doing okay and we believe he sustained blunt trauma to his eye – you know: border collie running at speed sometimes dose make the turn or stop in time (!).
His eye does seem a little bulgy and our regular vet didn’t have a “Tono-pen” to check his intraocular pressures, so we decide to take him to the doggie ophthalmologist, Rebecca Burwell.
Well, this vet checks his eye and says its already healing and his pressures in each eye are 12 – normal. She changes his eye drops to a different steroid. She thinks it looks like blunt trauma too. The easiest problem to fix. Time will heal it. All seems well.
Oct 15th
Ron and I spend most of the day in San Francisco getting medical stuff done for Ron. We arrive home late afternoon. And we take the dogs out for their regular beach walk. Lyla runs down the beach towards the water but Zeb stop by me and makes a strange coughing/gagging sound and obviously is not feeling well.
.
We get back to the house and I feed the dogs but Zeb doesn’t want his dinner. Huge alarm bells go off in my head – this is not our Zebby. He loves his food – he’s a confirmed ”inhaler” of all food stuffs!! I am very concerned and decide to take him into the vet first thing in the morning.
Oct 16th
Vet Erich checks Zeb over again. Heart strong and regular. Lungs clear. No fever. But blood in his eye again! Yuck. And his respiration is fast. The vet thinks maybe I’m being a little paranoid but I know something is very wrong.
I ask Erich if he will do an x-ray of his chest to rule out any reason why he is breathing fast.
Well, you know when some comes into a room with bad news. That is what happens when Erich comes back with Zebs chest x-rays.
He shows me the films and where his lungs are meant to be nice and dark (clear) there is instead mottled grainy white infiltrating something pretty much throughout his lung tissue. I look over to poor Zeb and his ears are back and looking pretty anxious – poor Zeb is picking up that something is very wrong. I give him a cuddle to try and reassure him.
Erich says it could be cancer, fungal, parasitic or infection that could cause the lungs to look like that.. Well he had already checked out the tick diseases, and his blood work showed no elevated white blood count and he had no fever – unlikely to be infection. So Erich decides to pull more blood for the fungal test for Valley Fever (coccidi). I know there is a strong suspicion for cancer because of the eye bleeding (hyphema). Erich says to keep uses the same meds he prescribed last Wednesday.
Later that evening.
Zebby’s breathing seems labored and he looks uncomfortable so we decide to take him the emergency vet hospital. The emergency vet checks his oxygen level and it is a bit low, she would like to put him on oxygen but I’m reluctant as they might have to sedate him as they have to put a tube up his nostril and this is very uncomfortable (they put a “cone” around his head too). While we are there Zeb’s breathing gets easier and so the vet says we can take him home and to bring him back if his breathing gets worse.
We check him throughout the night and thank goodness he is still doing okay by the morning – a little laboured but relaxed.
Oct 17th
We make 2 appointment to see to specialist internist.
Dr Moeller is great but she highly suspects cancer. His heart and lungs sound clear and all his major organs palpate okay. She advises a tracheal wash and a fine needle aspiration of the lung to see if they can get any fungal or cancer cells so to confirm a diagnosis. The needle into a lung can collapse the lung so that is rather worrying. Plus an abdominal ultrasound to see if they can find a primary tumour mass.
We then see Dr Davidson in the afternoon. She is very concerned from the get go and basically thinks we are dealing with cancer. She says we can do an ultrasound right away. This doesn’t seem to invasive for Zeb so we go ahead with it (they have to shave his tummy). She comes back with the results and says they can see no tumour. She also says a needle biopsy of the lung could give a diagnosis but they “might only get blood”. This procedure seems pretty uncomfortable plus could add more suffering to poor Zeb if his lung collapses. We decide to hold off on it.
She then suggests giving him a chemotherapy drug called Elspar to see if the cancer is lymphoma. This cancer they can treat for a while with drugs. Even though Zeb isn’t showing signs of this cancer we try the Elspar as it is not meant to have bad side effects. They take a while giving it to him in case he should react to it badly.
We end the exam with me saying to the vet that if it’s cancer then the x-rays look really bad and we might only have days or weeks. She replies that we likely have only “days”. This is terrible! Our sunny, bouncy, joyful border collie boy of a few days ago is going to be dead in a matter of days!! We then get to go home with very heavy hearts.
Zeb vomits that night and has diarrhea. Great, so much for no side effects to the Elspar.
We spend the weekend coaxing Zeb to eat pretty much anything he likes. And giving him oodles of love and his favourite walks on the beach. And sleeping on the bed and the sofa and… whatever he wants(!)
Oct 20th
We go back to Vet Erich to get x-rays of Zeb’s lungs to see if the Elspar drug has made difference which it would do if we are dealing with Lymphoma. Alas there is no change. He takes more blood foe a CBC. And prescribes prednisone as this will help with reducing inflammation in the body and thus help stop bleeding in his eyes and on his skin (he had bruising on his tummy after they shaved him for the ultrasound).
We talk again to Dr Davidson and she confirms there is no change in the x-rays (I drove the x-rays from one office to the other that day.) Basically there is nothing else that the vets can do for us. Except make Zeb comfortable with pain pills. We could have the lung biopsy but there still would be no treatment for Zeb. Why put him through more pain and difficulty?!
I call and make an appointment with a Traditional Chinese Medicine vet. I know this can make a huge difference in health and wellness plus I’m also doing Qi Gong healing with Zeb everyday.
Oct 21
Zeb’s appetite is coming back. I thought the prednisone would help. Plus I’m buying him every yummy thing out there!!
Oct 24
The visit to the TCM vet is wonderful. Very holistic, nurturing and restorative. They work from a completely different health model.
Zeb has acupuncture and some powered herbs to take twice a day in his food. We leave this vet appointment feeling much more healed – in body and spirit.
Zebs energy level definitely seems better over the next 2 days. He’s still not the normal bouncy leapy boy but better that the fatigued baby that he has been. His eating is still limited to taking only the yummiest stuff (who would want to go back to brown crunchy bits when I can have fresh cooked foods!!)
His breathing is still compromised but we know why from the x-rays . But the TCM is targeting healing his whole system or at least making him as comfortable as possible.
Oct 27
We go see the eye vet again. She checks his pressures 6& 10 - normal. But when she checks the retinas' she sees bleeding in the left eye. Yuck. It started in his right eye and is now appearing in the other poor baby! She checks his blood pressure which is 170 - normal but high normal. We leave with a despondent feeling, plus all these vets visits are very expensive and what are they really doing for us? She says to come back in a month but not sure for what.
Oct 29
Zeb’s energy has been down the last 3 days. So I decide to take him to see the vet acupuncturist again to see if they can check his whole system and restore his energy again. I see another vet and she is great and advises more herbal medicines. Again, we have a feeling of general good well being from going to see this kind or vet or even healer.
I'm wondering about having his blood work done again but it's kinda traumatic going to the regular vet. And what good would it do? Would they give me any hope. Unlikely since they pretty much said there is nothing else they can do for us except supply limited pain meds.
