Meet and Greet

Happened to be at a nearby PetSmart when the local GPA group was there. Always nice to visit with the greyhounds and their owners. This is not the first time that we have meet some of these folks. There were 2 large male greyhounds there - very sweet dogs.

Got home and the difference between the males we met and Roland was scary. Roland's getting so skinny. His shoulder blades are prominent and his hip bones stick up. He looks alot like a puppy that hasn't filled out. The last couple of days everything he has eaten has come back up and he acts like he's constantly hungry. How much longer can this go on? Other than being hungry, he rarely seems in pain or very distressed. So, we wait........

Merry Christmas

Photo is from the Greyhound Nationals in Lexington KY. Roland is the one with the blue blanket out in front and NO he was not given a head start. This photo was about 4 strides into the course.

Christmas is this week. As we put up our tree and hung a special greyhound ornament, we noted that this is probably the last Christmas that Roland will be with us. If he makes it until March, he will be 12 years old. This is not bad for a large male greyhound, even if the last couple of years have not been the best.

Roland's doing about the same, although he's really started to lose weight. He's down to 81 lbs - from his adult weight of 94-96 lbs. He's clearly lost muscle in his shoulders and rear end and his hip bones are starting to be prominent. He's having issues seemingly related to a reduced immune system. He's had ear infections in both ears and what looks like a yeast infection on his skin on his belly and between his back legs. He gets a special shampoo to control it. So, we are treating symptoms that make him uncomfortable, but we're not able to do much about the underlying condition. His rear is quite weak and he's fallen several times when his feet have slipped. He even has trouble riding in the car. He can't seem to keep his balance comfortably and has to lie down. Since his favorite part of the car ride is looking out the window, lying down is not fun.

This has been such a difficult road, but Roland's been such a trouper. Merry Christmas to all and best wishes to all canines and their families for the coming year!

Sept and still living with mega-esophagus

Can't believe that we've made it this far with Roland. Things are pretty much the same.

Last night we did have an issue with our other dog - Maggie the whippet. After 3 hours at the vet today, she is starting to get better, but she has idiopathic geriatric vestibular disease. At it's worst this morning, she wouldn't even try to stand. By late this afternoon she was trying to stand and walk, but still not interested in food or water. She did get 350 cc of subcutaneous fluid at the vet's office.

Roland's regimen has not changed except that we now give him 10 mg of bethanechol at every meal (3 times a day). He still has good days and bad days. Last night was a bad night. It was especially bad for the humans in the family because we had to take care of 2 sick dogs. Roland had one of his bad events where he blurps repeatedly and looks quite distressed. He has recovered from this one fairly quickly. He ate a little breakfast and most of his dinner. He also wants to know why his sister is getting the good stuff. I don't think she has ever been sicker than him and he certainly doesn't get it. I'll admit that he's gotten spoiled with this illness.

July update

Photo is from his first agility trial at age 2.

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted an update. Things have been relatively stable - although gradually getting worse. Roland blurps nearly every day. He had 2 of the episodes where he blurps repeatedly over several hours within a 2 week period. We thought it might be the end, but he recovered back to baseline after the second event fairly quickly. Recently he went almost 2 days without blurping, but emptied pretty well tonight. He's clearly lost weight, but is generally hanging in there.

Bad Day

Just a short update. Frustrating day. Came home to find blurps all over the house. Couple looked dry and old - like from early in the morning. A couple were mostly water with some grass. This suggests that he wasn't feeling well. However, when I got home from work he did not act like he was feeling bad. He ate dinner well and looks comfortable. Sure wish we knew what to expect with this disease.

May update

Things have been pretty status quo for about a month now. Back in April we had a very bad stretch of a couple of weeks. One of Roland's back toenails came off. Of course it happened just before bedtime on a Sun evening. It's been so long since a toe nail came off that I couldn't find all the stuff. Finally got the bleeding stopped and got to bed. The nail bled off and on for several days.

That Thurs we had an appointment with our vet. She thought he looked great. His weight is holding steady. We reviewed the dosing of bethanechol and discussed what the projectile blurping might be about. No real resolutions. I think we are all guessing at this point. His toe looked fine when she examined it.

The next day and over the weekend, Roland had a really bad time. He was blurping up almost everything that he ate and he did not look well. We also noticed that his toe was swelling some and bleeding again. We were soaking his foot, but it wasn't getting any better. I called the vet and she agreed to treat his toe with an additional antibiotic, which I picked up on Tues. For the next 10 days he got the antibiotic (cephalosporin) and I stopped his tetracycline. I was worried that his SLO might flare up, but cephalosporins don't work well when given with tetracycline. After a couple of days, the swelling in the toe went down and his blurping reduced in frequency and volume. By the end of the 2 weeks, he was back to his baseline.

The main outcome of this episode is that if Roland blurps more than once a day, I increase his sucralfate to 3 times a day. When he has the episodes of repeated blurping and panting it does appear that he has esophageal irritation and the sucralfate should help with this. We've also increased his bethanechol to a total of 20 mg/day - 5 at breakfast, 5 at dinner and 10 before bed. In the past month, he rarely goes a day without blurping but it is often predictable - when he is either excited or drinks a bunch of water, or gets too hot, etc.

A couple of weeks ago he did have one day when the blurp had a different consistency. Usually it is clear liquid with identifiable undigested food. This one day it was darker brown and more even in consistency - more like stomach contents, but without bile.

In our case, as the saying goes - No news is good news. We cannot believe that we lived with megaesophagus for 17 months, but we'll take every day that we can have.

Update mid-March

Photo is Roland at age 9.

Nothing really new to report. Roland seems about the same. He had done well for several days and then a couple of nights ago, he got us up in the middle of the night to clean up a couple of blurps. Last night - no problems. He's also not blurped during the day for over a week. He's due to go back to the vet for a checkup. It will be interesting to see what he weighs. I don't think he's lost any weight.