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betty_joanne

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  1. UPDATE: I don't even know what to say. After doing better for almost four weeks Nilla took a turn for the worst. She stopped using her left leg again and appeared to be in pain.I didn't even need the technician to explain the x-rays today. Her Left pelvis and femur have been completely destroyed by osteo sarcoma. Amputation and/or chemo aren't even an option. I have to say good bye tomorrow. I feel horrible that she was in pain for so long. The difference between the x-ray last month and the one today is incredibly heartbreaking. Two cancer diagnoses in less than two weeks. There are just no words to describe how I feel right now.
  2. We are going to start giving prednisone tommarow. I am not sure if it will give us more time but we have decided to not do chemo. Almost all of his lymph nodes are swollen now and he still has a terrible cough. I would prefer that he goes with dignity but it is up to my husband. "Grandma"(my mom) came by today and he was soo excited to see her. He loves my mom.
  3. I just spoke to the vet. Chocko has lymphomasarcoma high grade.
  4. Our oldest greyhound Chocko started coughing on April 1, 2019 and we noticed after a vet visit on the 5th that he had swollen nodules in his neck. Somehow, we missed the swollen nodules and the vet did too on that visit so we took him to his other vet a week later and got a fine needle aspiration from the nodules in his neck. He took a weeks worth of doxycycline and then the second vet switched him over to Clindamycin just incase it was due to a mouth infections. His check x-ray at the 2nd vet was clear. We are waiting on the pathology results from Friday. Yesterday, he was "mouth breathing" (had his mouth open just slightly all day when he was awake or sleeping). Today, Chocko now has a swollen nodule in his back left leg behind the knee and the same leg has swelling between the food pad and "ankle". He also appears to have a larger belly and a new fat pouch just in front of his penis. I am just heartbroken and can't keep it together. This is my husband's heart dog. He was our first greyhound and we have so many "first greyhound memories" with him. I just can't stop crying.
  5. Update: Nilla is doing well after her stem cell injection. She still is not using her back leg fully but is putting weight on it more frequently as time goes by. She still becomes a pretend three legged brindle kangaroo in the backyard though. Her eyes are bright again and she is happy and eating good. We are happy she is doing well because our oldest has become sick and we are waiting on his pathology results. Our vet looked at his lymph node cells(taken from left and right side on neck) and said they look highly suspicious. Our first half of 2019 sure has been difficult. We are used to having healthy dogs and now that two of them are seniors and starting to have issues it is heartbreaking. Just two weeks ago I thought we were going to have to put Nilla down and now this. We got Chocko first and he is my husband's heart dog. He was the very first greyhound anyone in my family saw in person or touched. Yep, we went home with the big, black, and handsome office dog at the track. Best decision ever!
  6. We picked up Nilla yesterday and she is doing well. She did not eat last night but that was to be expected due to her coming off of the anesthesia. This morning she has already eaten a couple of milk bones, cesar turkey wet dog food, and a frosty paw. She is putting a small amount of weight on the bad leg and it is paw side down 90% of the time when she decides to put it down. She is still limping and her left leg muscle has atrophied a lot. The amount of muscle one can lose in just over a week is just crazy. We are so happy!
  7. NIlla has compression in her spine at the t9-t10 vertebrae. Mostly likely IVDD. The mri showed nothing abnormal about the hips. Today, she will get a stem cell injection into her spine with hopes that it will improve her condition. We will bring her home tonight. Tonight we will have spent nearly $4,000 on her diagnosis and treatment. We will not do back surgery on her. If the stem cell injection does not improve her condition and she does not start eating again we will have to let her go. It is not what we want to do but we have to be realistic about her condition and pain. I can't believe she went from acting like a normal, healthy dog to this in a just 4 days.
  8. NIlla is going in for a mri on Wednesday morning. We saw a different vet at the same vet clinic that we went to last Wednesday. The vet told us that he felt the heart is not causing the pain that she is in and an ultrasound would not be a good option because he thinks that the issue is on the lumbar part of the spine and also possibly a groin ligament injury(in addition to the spinal cord injury). He is thinking either FCE or a spinal cord injury/issue of some kind. He is confused that she is in soo much pain though because a FCE almost always does not cause this amount of pain almost a week after the injury/incident. Nilla has lost 2.5 lbs and thankfully she isn't dehydrated. Also, we were given samples of CBD chews to give to her. She is almost out of Tramadol but we have found that the Gabapentin actually seems to work better for her. She is starting to adapt to being on just her three legs. She still wants me to carry her outside but then she hops really fast back inside once she is done.
  9. I have learned that it is very difficult to find images of x-rays of greyhound hearts on the internet. I can't tell if there is an issue when looking at the side view but the other x-ray may or may not be heart disease. It does look big but I don't really have any other greyhound x-rays to compare it to.
  10. trying again. In my opinion, the left femur at the top might have the moth like appearance of osteo. The vet looking at the x-rays ruled osteo out though. She isn't laying perfectly straight for the x-ray so that may be why it looks this way. I don't know.
  11. https://1drv.ms/u/s!Am8M-rwo-bcMhXbzzU3JaelZamBB trying to make a link using onedrive. not sure if it will work. I think that this x-ray is the most suspicious.
  12. I just got the x-rays via e-mail and sent them to dr.couto to see how much a consult would be. In the process I realized that the vet only took a close of up the right rear leg and did not take one of the left rear leg(which is the leg that she is not bearing weight on). There are like 9 x-rays and none show a close of up the knee patella area on the left leg. Hopefully she just forgot to send e-mail it because if not I am very upset that it wasn't done.
  13. The main issue now is that she is not eating. She had half a chicken thigh, cream cheese w/ meds and yogurt yesterday. That's it. I am still lifting her to take her outside but once her bladder is empty she is hopping on the back right leg back inside. I will say that she is actually squatting low to pee again. She refuses to lay down sometimes and when she does she will only lay down on her right side. She is panting and in pain. She only yelps if she is laying on her side and you move her left or right leg upward/downward at the hip joint. Her pain meds only give her comfort for about 2-2.5 hours and she only gets them twice a day. I am struggling with the fact that she is losing weight and in pain for several hours a day. The vet has worked on greyhounds but does need reminding that they are different. He did go by the greyhound blood work chart when they did Nilla's blood work before the x-rays. At this point, unless things change drastically, I think we will have to make a choice early to mid week on if we should let her go. I just can not let my dog slowly starve and be in pain. She has been knuckling her left paw since Tuesday. She will not place it at all on the foot pad. Both vets checked this.
  14. ProBNP is 1078. That is not really above normal for a greyhound.
  15. This sounds like what I am going through with my greyhound. She does have some hip pain though. I know this is an old thread but did you get a diagnosis?
  16. vet called back and said pro-bnp is moderately elevated and they want to do an ultrasound of her heart and leg on Monday. I called back to get the actual bnp numbers but the receptionist "didn't have access" to that information. Ughh. I feel like we are chasing the wrong thing but this vet seems convinced the heart is the issue. Extremely frustrated. Our family has discussed if and when for letting her go. It is not fair to her for us to drag her to the vet over and over if she does get worse or loses several a large percentage of her weight. Until then, I will just continue on with carrying her and keeping her comfortable.
  17. We are still waiting on the results of the heart test. First vet ruled out broken bones with x-rays. Second vet thinks that it is a spinal cord injury or issue of some kind. The good:eating, drinking, went #2 finally after 2 and a half days, alert, no incontinence, the foot on the bad leg went from cold to warm, some pulsing in foot near the paw pad, getting up and standing on her own to go potty if i don't come get her when she first starts whining. The bad-not eating enough, still not bearing any weight on left back leg(not completely dragging it though), no diagnosis, I am still having to pick her up and carry her every couple of hours. I have started some leg exercises with her back legs. She dozed while i was doing them with her legs so I feel like it is better than nothing at this point. Other than that we are all just devastated. I am exhausted from carrying her to the yard every 2-3 hours and my whole body hurts. I am really trying to not give up on her at this point. I am going to see if i can gut a cloth grocery bag and make a lift to see if that will help. One of my other greyhounds is a complete emotional wreck because her playmate is hurt. She is acting out, peed in her kennel, mopping around, not eating all of her food and is so upset.
  18. When laying down i noticed that the opposite leg up front doesn't extend properly when she is laying on her side. Left back leg not working and front right leg not extending fully when she is laying on her side. I know that I have seen this mentioned somewhere but can't remember where.
  19. She has eaten some chicken, cream cheese(with meds) and dog biscuits. She got up around 3pm on her own and got water and went out to go #1. She has not yet gone #2. She is walking with 3 legs and the back right leg is shaking horribly and exhausting her. I carried her to her kennel but she would not go in and I decided to let her just lay down right outside of it. Her left leg when she is laying on her side is almost weightless and has zero resistance to me moving it any way. I don't think she can feel her left leg. It is less warm than the right leg. I am getting yesterdays x-rays tomorrow before her appointment and will go from there. I don't know what to do at this point with her being unable to stand more than twice a day for less than 5 minutes. Frustrated and I am going to be on my own carrying her everywhere tomorrow. She isn't panting now but her heart is beating really fast. It could still be a pinched nerve but might be one in her back or leg area because the back legs are the issue and not the front legs.
  20. She has always walked kind of stiff legged compared to our other two greyhounds. I wonder if that is something I have over-looked.
  21. My dog had a small limp for a couple of days and then splayed out on our floors last night and suddenly could not use or put weight on the leg that she was limping on at all. We took her to the vet last night and had an x-ray done of her back left leg. Vet said everything looked fine except her enlarged heart and heart murmur. After going home I looked up enlarged hearts for greyhounds and realized the vet might not have any clue at all what is wrong. He ordered a blood test to see if she has enlarged heart disease(sorry, forgot the name). Test is called PropBNP. Our greyhound is 9 years old and does have some sort of un-diagnosed focal seizures of some kind that happen once or twice a year(eyes dilate, circles to the left, scared to walk down hallway). The vet was trying to link the enlarged heart and neurological issues to the limp but I am not convinced at all and upset that we didn't find out what is wrong with her leg. The vet seemed concerned that her good back leg(right one) was extremely weak and shaking from having weight on it. Vet said that should not happen and is a huge concern. During the exam she made no whimpers and gave no signs of pain. She would occasionally slip her paw from pointing backwards with top(fur part) touching table to touching the exam table with her toe pads during the exam. She is now on Tramadol, Gabapentin, and minocycline. Vet said she couldn't "feel" the leg. We had previously made an appointment for Thursday at our usual vet and have decided to keep it even though we will be paying for everything again a second time. We are thinking of also getting an x-ray of the neck and now i am wondering why the vet last night didn't ask us if we wanted an x-ray of her neck while she was under the anesthesia. She could have a pinched nerve in her neck and the vet didn't even mention that. Last night when my husband raised her leg (when she was on her side) she whimpered. He is convinced the issue is in the hip area. Now our girl is not eating. We are getting down the meds with cream cheese but she won't eat and drink as of last night. Last night when going through what the vet gave us I realized we didn't even receive a paper of the results of our $850 emergency exam and x-ray. It is hard to remember everything that he said. This may have been an over-cite because we were there as an emergency after hours until 9pm. We sill don't have any answers and we are very upset.
  22. Is there an updated poll or thread on raw diet cost(prey m. or barf)? There was a raw diet cost poll done in 2009 on here but meat prices have gone up since then. I am researching meat prices and unless I use mostly chicken it is going to be really difficult to come in under $90 per dog per month. If you feed raw can you give your monthly costs per dog? Also, what is the daily amount of food in pounds that you are feeding per dog. I am thinking approx. 1.5 lbs(give or take) per day per dog is the correct measurement for my dogs at 65,70, and 75lbs.
  23. My boy has a small (approx. 3/4 inch cut on inner leg above the hock). It is the "see through" part of the leg above the hock if that helps. We are going to make an appointment asap but i am wondering if this is an area that can even be stitched or if it is a more bandage and let heal on its own type of wound.
  24. I live near Galveston, TX. How would I go about locating a neurologist for her?
  25. 6 months. Her first episode was about a week and a half after we took her home. She had an episode about every 1-2 weeks after that. The last three nights she has had one episode each night. Husband is convinced that it is him. He has been on vacation for the past three days. I don't think that is it at all. Vet has looked at her eyes and said everything looks fine.
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