Six Months

My dog, Lucy, is about twelve-and-a-half years old.   She’s a long-haired chihuahua who has never been high-strung like some small dogs are.   She gets edgy around small children because their quick movements frighten her, but overall she’s friendly, liking people and other dogs alike.

When she was a puppy we discovered her patellas dislocated more so than not so she had two patella attachment surgeries, resulting in pins and a future of arthritis when she became older.   She’s been in good health otherwise aside from a tick incident when she ran into a next of nymphs and had over eight-hundred baby ticks on her a few years ago.

About two years back her veterinarian did bloodworm and some x-rays on her to see how her knees were doing.   At that time he discovered she had an enlarged heart.   We’ve been treating it with medication and she’s been doing fairly well.

Recently my husband and I’ve noticed she’s been sometimes lethargic, sometimes breathing heavier and coughing.   We took her in today to make sure her arthritis wasn’t getting worse and to have her checked into overall.    

I got a call from her doctor mid-day saying he’d like to do another x-ray to see if her heart had grown larger because from what they could tell, her knees looked about the same.   The harder breathing and coughing were more likely related to the heart size.   I told him to go ahead and he said he’d follow up in a few hours.

He called back and said her heart was larger, but that was something that happens over time with the condition.   He said he wanted to put her on a diuretic medication to reduce some of the surrounding fluid, which was connected to her coughing and would help reduce the pressure of her heart on her trachea so she could breathe easier and wouldn’t need to cough.

When my husband picked her up he talked to the doctor who told him the Vetmedin medication we’d had her on for the last two years was a marvel in that dogs with this condition historically weren’t able to survive long.   Unfortunately, when your heart continues to grow while on the medication, it’s a sign the heart is moving into heart failure in the relatively near future.   He said Lucy more than likely has six months longer before her heart can’t sustain her body any more.

Next week after the diuretic course is complete our veterinarian will reassess and see what additional medications to put her on.   Then, we’ll monitor her and make sure she’s happy, well-loved and comfortable, understanding she isn’t going to be with us that much longer.

The Big Boy Update:  My mother sang songs to the children over the phone last night as they were in their beds.   My son told her, “Mimi, I want to marry you.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My son loves Legos.   I discovered the other day that his sister does as well.   I got a grocery store and ice cream shop set for young children to do with my daughter.   She was very interested, did a lot of the pieces herself and helped me when she got tired of trying to visually align things.   She could find the pieces by color and shape and enjoyed the whole project.   When we were done with it she played with it for a whole day before an “invisible friend” broke it all apart and mom, do you think we could put it together again?  She had just as much fun the second time putting it together.