Helping Diamond find answers to her infection

BAD NEWS: Went for our visit with specialist yesterday. Sigh..well what I worried about most is exactly what happened. NO ANSWERS. They don’t know what this is. It’s one of 3 things. Something embedded in neck we can’t see, a bacterial infection picked up from maybe inhalation or something or its cancer. So we discussed her heart issues and mentioned an EKCO. I have wanted to do this on her for yrs, I didn’t know anyone around here did these. Then we discussed surgery only if her heart was ok. So we did the EKCO. The specialist looked at it and told me her opinion but sent it out to cardiologist. She feels her heart is in pretty good shape considering and most likely can handle the surgery. Oh back to surgery. The surgery would remove the polyp/cavity/tumor and also allow for a biopsy to see if it is a tumor and/or malignant or benign.

Report back today from cardiologist, she is good for surgery. Read down for more......

Now the even worse news….The surgery will cost $5000. If we don’t do surgery she will have to live on antibiotics for the rest of her life. And yes I know my dog is older but you know what..she’s in pretty good shape for an old dog and she may have several yrs left..or more..who knows. We would do this for our elderly if it gave them a chance at life..even if it was only 6 more months. And yes even surgery is risky…all of it is..medicine is risky. We all know that. Anyway she sent us home with 2 prescriptions to get from my local pharmacy cause they will be cheaper. Antibiotics (Clindamycin) and meds for nausea in case they make her sick. She increased her antibiotic medicine dosage another 300mg per day. The other med is for nausea and vomiting if they make her sick. Not that expensive dog med the vets been giving us for that…but a human med. So today the Dr called me with the results of the EKCO report from cardiologist. Good news on it. Her heart can handle the surgery. She doesn't have heart disease. She has heart damage from having heartworms when she was younger. It will not get worse. She does not need meds for it.

So this is what I will do at this time. Starting a NEW fundraiser that is specific for the surgery. You will see all the donations that come in and the amount raised. Starting from scratch. I need $5000 and right now I have about $1000+ so that’s a good start. BUT we DO need to do a bacterial culture still and I believe it's under $500. So anyway I am setting it at $4000 at this time..but may bump it up a little more if culture is more cause the money I have now will go towards that.  to cover the funds taken by fundraiser folks and to continue meds until then. She will continue to be on antibiotics the entire time until surgery. 

Anyway here it is the NEW fundraiser…this is FAR from over……I won't be posting in this particular fundraiser anymore. We are moving forward with new one. 

I want to say THANK YOU TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU for your continued support and donations. 

We need answers and this is the only way to get them..is to do the biopsy/surgery. Here is the new one. https://www.givesendgo.com/DiamondsSurgery

Ok, I spoke to Ally (scheduler) at the specialist office. She said we are going to see a Dr Wilson which is an internal medicine dr, not an Oncologist. She said Dr Wilson (woman dr) LOVES difficult cases…and Ally said this one sounded mysterious.

We are scheduled for Feb 8th at 10am. She said the price..depending on what they want to do could run up to $2500. They really can’t give a price since this is a difficult case. It doesn’t mean it will be that much but could. Ally mentioned a Punch Biopsy and Bacterial Culture and a few other options that they can do, Diamond is allergic to anesthesia in which Diamond had the GAS type which she said is more harsh on pets. hhmm. Diamond got an enlarged spleen from it. Spleen is ok now but it took months for it to go completely back to normal. Also Diamond has heart disease (enlargement of the heart) so they will have to work around that. She did quote a minimum of $1500. So yes we need more funds. Right now we are at $595 minus GiveSendGo fees. So I hope on that day we can get answers. I felt good about the conversation and how they do things. I am ready to get answers. Oh get this, Ally use to work at my vet clinic like 15 yrs ago. Wow…small world. Anyway with all of that said, please share, donate, and pray for my girl. We will finally be getting some type of answers whatever this may be. Any donation is a good donation no matter what you can offer. Thank you everyone for donating. You have been a Godsend. And Pleaseeee share this!

Went to see new vet. Didn't get any answers. He said not much he could do other than what's already been done...and referred us to a specialist. We will go in a week or two... The problem..WE NEED help VERY BAD. I do not have that kind of money to pay a specialist. PLEASE if you can donate anything, I would greatly appreciate it. We don't know what this is yet but...it isn't looking good. We cannot try to fix this or atleast find out what this is without seeing this specialist. I am now begging for your help...PLEASE. The funds you see in the fundraiser was from before and the rest used today. So we are starting from scratch. I figure a specialist is a minimum of $1,000....$2000 would be better. They will want to sedate her most likely and get into this lump. PLEASE help me reach my goal. PLEASE.. I am begging....PLEASE help us! 

There is a glitch with this going on. I posted once and it posted about 10 times. Will report the glitch...but please donate if you can. 

Last weekend, Diamonds lump returned, just out of nowhere. Last night her neck got hugeeeeee. And it was very red and very swollen. She has been back on antibiotics for 3 days. I did a few other things her at home. Also hot and cold compresses. This seemed to reduce the inflammation some. She is eating good and drinking and acting fine so far. 

I have now made an appointment with a NEW vet to see how this goes. I am certain we will be redoing all these tests again. sigh. I really need some help financially on this. I am still paying on all the other things we did before so this is hitting me pretty hard. If you can donate, please do.. so I can get answers. I told the lady at the new vets office, we need to find out what this is. I hope this new vet can get me answers. We MUST find out what this is and why it isn't going away. This is a mystery. It's been 2 1/2 months that it was gone. We suffered through vestibular disease for 3 weeks and she has recovered from that. She still has a slight stiff neck and head tilt but I don't see that going away. But overall she recovered from it. Diamonds really going through some battles lately of weird things and I hope to get answers this time although I am not expecting a diagnosis on this. But we are most likely in for a bunch more antibiotics for this. She is on Clindamycin right now so we will see if it goes away for good after this. I am not counting on that though but I am hopeful. This is just absolutely nuts that this is happening. WHY? I have never ever heard or seen anything like this. It is baffling to say the least. If you can help my baby, I would appreciate it very much. Thank you all for being here for my girl. I love her so much. I been in tears for days over this. This has to get to an end so she isn't sick anymore. Otherwise she is being her same ole self...being my wonderful funny girl. Please donate if you can. Thank you all!

Diamond tore both of her ACLs last yr. Since the antibiotics lat given..shes been limping pretty hard. two things, she re-tore her ACL or the meds messed her up. Not sure which or what.. Anyway i was looking towards a leg brace to help her walk from her4e on out..permanently. Its $325 for the brace. a custom brace is $800-$1000. Cannot afford that at all..so wanted to try a basic one. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Diamond so far is doing good. No swelling in her neck at all. Off meds 3 weeks now. One more thing with the leg to fix and I think she will be back on track. Remember..at 14 yrs of age...she really is in good shape...My vet tells me this all the time. She has years left in her life I think. I will love her everyday for the rest of her life and make her life as comfortable as possible till that day comes. Thanks everyone for being here and helping my girl survive this all and continue her journey through life. Any donations for the brace would be greatly appreciated. This is the brace. https://www.aocpet.com/collections/ready-to-fit/products/performance-dog-knee-brace

I have some good news on Diamond. Dr B called and her lump shows lipoma or fat. NO CANCER. They didn’t find anything in the area that was aspirated. I pointed to the spot myself and Dr B aspirated it there. So unless I was way off on the spot, this infection is GONE! Dr B said, he was thinking if he called and I told him her neck was swelled again..he was gonna say I give up, I don’t have a clue what this is. - Well we really still don’t. Anyway this will just be a WATCH thing now…..I am gonna say all the prayers prayed over her have been awesome. Thank you all so so much. Including the GiveSendGo folks. Loved their phone call and prayer for her. So don’t stop right now praying as it might return. Let’s hope not. So FOR NOW, we won’t need to do further testing. IF the lump returns..we may have to try a PARR test ($620) which will rule out cancer for sure. But as of today…….it’s all good and we have finally made progress. It’s been 2 weeks since any medication so let’s hope this remains good from here on out. I am happy with the results today. Hallelujah!!!!!! 🥰. I will update if anything changes.

Diamonds bloodwork is back. It shows high liver numbers. I am guessing due to so many drugs. She is off all drugs now. Has been for over a week. I will be giving Milk Thistle to her. NO SIGN of cancer on bloodwork. All normal numbers. Thyroid is also good. White blood cell count..normal. No infection. RBC normal..no anemia. Things look pretty good. FYI..Diamond has not had high liver numbers so this is rare. I assume the drugs. I will work on that now. Swelling in neck has even gone down more in her neck today. Weird stuff going on. NEXT WEEK we get the needle aspiration test results. That will tell us more on the cancer stuff. Lots of prayers please........🙏🙏🙏. If aspiration comes back showing cancerous cells, we will need to do the PARR test which is $620. I have $100 from donations right now. The other $230 was spent on Wednesday. So we need $520 more dollars.. If can donate, please do. I appreciate EVERYTHING and thank you so much for your support.

Well we spent 5 hours at the vets. Callie had one lump aspirated..under her front leg (armpit). Will get results in a week. The others are most likely fatty tumors..(benign). Also doing a deep liver check on bloodwork for her. Should have that in the next day or two.

As for Diamond, well sigh..where do I start. Today we did xrays on her organs and neck…everything was clear and looked great. Also we did an ultrasound. There was something there….but not sure what. There was a white area. I watched as it was being done. Also he stuck a needle in Diamonds lump area and couldn’t hardly get anything out. What did come out was like a drop of clear fluid. So not enough to do a Bacterial Culture but enough to send off to lab for another cancer check. First aspiration did not show any cancer cells. 2nd aspiration showed some..but not enough to confirm cancer. So we are doing another anddd we did another full blood work-up. The previous blood work did not indicate cancer. Dr B is NOT convinced this is even a lymph node at all. It’s embedded in her neck. It’s the exact spot of a lymph node though to me. She is NOT going back on antibiotics at this time. I have some Clindamycin for just in case it gets large. Right now it’s not too bad. It’s a watch thing. We just don’t know what this is right now. Hopefully these tests will tell us something. A PARR test which will rule out cancer costs $620. I did not have the money for that as I haven’t gotten near enough donations. There is one other test that can be done to check for cancer and it’s a Bone Marrow aspiration. That will be last thing to do if we suspect cancer. God knows what that costs. I still need help financially until this is over. Pray and donate if you can please. Thank you!

After 4 days off antibiotics, the lump has returned. We go to vet in the morning. I will say this last pill form antibiotic made her limp more on her back right leg. Yep antibiotics will do that sometimes. Cephalexin did that to her back in 2012 and now this one was Clavamox that did. Otherwise she did ok on this pill form. She has a really sensitive tummy so it’s hard for her to take pills. I could really use more donations. I have about 4-5 tests ( some new ones) that are needed for tomorrow and I don’t have enough money to get them done. These tests will either find something or rule out different things..mostly cancer. I have searched till my brain was in overload on looking for answers. Nothing is fitting. I have looked at all kinds of cancers including leukemia and it is close but just doesn’t quite go with her blood work from August. Tomorrow I will have blood work redone to search again. Her lump is back but it’s at half the size it originally was…at this time. It pops up within hours so who’s to say what size it will be in a few hours. I am taking her in the morning and as I said…we need to redo all tests from 3 months ago plus add in some others. If you are able, please share this with friends and donate if you can. I have another dog with lumps (4 on one side all popped up in the last 3-4 months) that needs checked out as well. One is under her front leg/armpit area..which is lymph node area. Otherwise she is doing fine. If anyone knows any drs that are specialist in this sort of stuff..maybe they can point in a direction to what this may be. I will add the FIRST aspiration results here…since I just requested to see them. This was from Aug 2nd. Clearly shows infection only. The second aspiration has a little more to it. We will most likely do a third tomorrow. I will update tomorrow on what happens at vets.  

Dr B called. He spoke to a Dr Ball from Adequan for about 25 minutes and they said they showed LESIONS on a lymph node at 5 times the dosing amount in 3 patients. He doesn’t think there is a connection although it would have been nice to make a connection to something. That makes me happy in that sense since it has saved her life. I missed his call but he left a message for me. I am still taking her and Callie (she las lumps on her side) into see him first week of November for rechecks. He did mention twice he hoped Diamond was doing ok and if not..bring her back by. He did say..he went back and looked at the tests from the aspirations and he couldn’t even see where it mentions anything about it being a lymph node... hhhmmm ok that one baffled me. I will discuss with him further on this when we go back in. I am glad to hear it is not the Adequan and that now has been ruled out. Back to the drawing board. Sigh!