Mon., May 23, 2011 - Options for nasal drainage and MACH watch

When I went for Hardee's last chemo appointment, I talked to Dr P about the increased nasal drainage problems that we were having.  When Hardee is awake, he can swallow the drainage that goes down the back of his throat, or we can wipe or he licks the drainage away coming out the front of his nose.  But when Hardee tries to sleep, it becomes problematic.  Sometimes in the middle of the night, Hardee will jump up struggling to breathe because of all the drainage going down the back of his throat.  A couple mornings Hardee even vomited trying to clear his airway to breathe.  His vomit was just a bunch of snot.  Dr P gave me 3 options to see if we could slow the nasal drainage.

The first option was antibiotics.  We could put Hardee on antibiotics to see if it slowed the drainage.  If it worked, we could change him to an antibiotic that he could stay on long term.

Option two was prednisone.  I don't like the long term use of steroids because of the damage they do, but Dr P assured me that we could adjust the dosage down, if it worked to slow the drainage, that Hardee could stay on long term.  He said he has numerous dogs that have been on low dose prednisone for years.

The last option was surgery.  Dr P said that he could go up the front of Hardee's nose with forceps and try and pull out as much tumor as he could to see if that produced less drainage.  I said "absolutely, No" to that option.  Back in Nov. when we went to CT scan again after radiation, I had Dr P do another biopsy to make sure we were dealing with the original diagnosis.  Two weeks later, I CT scanned again to see what the tumor was doing to make a decision about starting chemo, and the tumor had grown significantly in those 2 weeks.  Further research on my part found evidence that cutting into the tumor can send it into hyper drive growth.  So, no one is ever touching that tumor again!!

I decided to try the antibiotics first.  I got the prescription filled, but I just haven't started Hardee on them yet.  We have been going through a manageable period now with the drainage, so I will wait until the drainage gets bad again to start the antibiotics.

Onto one of my favorite subjects, agility.  For those not involved in the sport, the dog and handler need 20 double qualifying runs (qualifying in both of their runs in the same day) and 750 speed points for his Master Agility Championship (MACH).  Hardee has had all his points for quite some time and is now working on his QQs (double qualifying runs).  Hardee and Jim are at # 19 now and just need one more.  We hope to get his MACH at this weekend's trial.  It would be a perfect weekend to finish their MACH at a Memorial Day trial because Jim is a veteran, and also because our club, the Southern California Portuguese Water Dog Club, is sponsoring the trial.  I hope I haven't jinxed their chances now by writing about it.  Keep your fingers and paws crossed for Jim and Hardee!  They so deserve this and have worked so hard for it.  We are definitely on MACH watch!

Until then, it is all about joy and all about Hardee! 

Have a great holiday weekend everyone, and take a second to remember those who served and died for your freedom.