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.