Tara update

Sorry I haven't updated about Tara in awhile.

Well, no heart disease. She was officially diagnosed with chylothorax. Underlying cause is likely cancer. We opted not to have the thoracotomy to open up her chest and see how much cancer there is. Aside from the cost, we mainly opted against it because we didn't want to have to come to the decision to not wake her up from the surgery if it was that bad. We also didn't necessarily want to know she only had "2 weeks" or "6 months" or whatever the case may be.

So, what are we doing? Just managing it. Talked with my bestest favorite vet [who helped deliver Cherry's puppies almost 2yrs ago now] and even he said that was a good option. Let her live her life and when the time comes, it comes. We just have to have the fluid drained from her chest every week or so. Ugh.

Tara's going to the vet tonight to have that done. It's been 10 days - and 20 days from the initial draining. We should have it done again right before our big trip so my dad doesn't have anything to worry about when he watches the girls. She's been eating sporadically [though the weather's been hot] and her energy level is fairly consistent. In the evenings, she loves laying the back of BF's car. Doesn't like going anywhere - just laying in his car. Silly.

And she has no problems eating cookies to her heart's desire! Picture is after she just gorged herself on 3 HUGE Trader Joe's organic peanut butter cookies [the ones with the greyhounds on the box].

Orvis Cover Pups

Vote for Tara & Evie as the new Orvis Catalog 2010 cover pups!

https://coverdog.orvis.com/contest.html?contestId=1 or search for "Tara and Evie" and vote! GH need your help!

Voting will also help to donate $$ for canine cancer research!

Sickness

Pleural effusion is the build up of fluid in the cavity between the lungs and the chest wall. Normally there's a tiny amount of fluid in there to prevent chaffing [for lack of a better word] of the lungs against the chest wall. It's generally related to a disease such as heart failure/heart disease or cancer.

Tara was diagnosed with pleural effusion the other day. She had 3 litres of fluid drained out of her chest [yes, that's like a coke bottle & a half]. Creamy, yellowish fluid tinged with blood. 3 litres of fluid weighs a bit more than 6lbs. She's lookin' pretty thin. We're trying hard to get her to eat to get weight back on her.

It started with a cough [like a cat trying to throw a big ol' hairball] several weeks ago, but we though she had eaten grass or had a bit of food stuck in her throat. Pisses me off that the vet [or should I say assistant, who said we didn't book a vet appointment, but only a vaccine appointment] didn't take the time to look down her throat. Hello, if you took her in the back so the vet could give her a rabies vaccine, how hard would it have been to take 5min more and look down her throat????

We had to bring her back after she seemed to drop about 5lbs overnight. And don't tell me [stupid assistant] that she's only dropped 1lb since January - when we were in for vaccines 2wks ago, your stupid scale wasn't working. I know when a greyhound looks too thin. 4-5 ribs + hard hib bones is too thin; 1-2 ribs & slight hip bones is normal. Fine we'll take xrays. That's when the xrays showed the fluid...

She goes to the cardiologist on Monday for ultrasound/EKG and more tests. Hopefully it's just heart disease to be managed with medicine - and not cancer. Hopefully.