Surf is still holding her own. Her 10 day course of amoxicillin is up so the vet moved her to a much stronger (and much more expensive) antibiotic – Baytril at 150mg – 1 pill a day for 10 days ($5.70 a pill!) I was talking to the vet tech for awhile and she emphasized again that it still could be lung cancer and whatever she coughed up for their sample was just from her throat and not her lungs. Still I’ll choose to fight as long as Surf does. She will eat the canned beef chunks in gravy food, but really only if she is hand fed chunk by chunk, but whatever it takes! She’s really chewing a lot at her front right paw, so I wonder if when they have this neurological problem with the paws knuckling if the paws are tingly. Overall, she’s doing better than a few days ago. She’ll wag her tail a bit and get up on her own to find a new place to lie every hour or so, whereas earlier in the week she couldn’t even really lift her head for too long.
Keep all those powerful good thoughts coming!

Surf is sleeping on the futon I have stretched out in the living room right now. Her legs are so weak and wobbly that she’s learned to try to run when she’s up thinking that she’ll have a better chance of getting to where she wants to go! It’s working outside, but not on the vinyl flooring in the kitchen. Her legs just slide out like baby Bambi in there.
For the more part she’s resting, sometimes sleeping and dreaming, sometimes just lying there with her eyes half open. Her breathing is fast and a little louder than normal. The only thing she’ll eat are milkbones and peanut butter, she’s said no to her kibble, canned dog food, a cheeseburger, liquid Ensure (liquid meal replacement), and her other kind of cookie. She got up last evening a few times on her own to go get a drink. While there were times yesterday afternoon that I didn’t think she’d survive until this morning, last night she definitely was a bit stronger and held her head up much more when she was lying on the futon.
Basically I’m waiting on the pathology report. If it is definitely cancer that has filled her lungs, then I’ll let her go, probably today. If it’s something else, well then I’ll look at the chance of a recovery. I don’t think she is in pain, she just doesn’t have her life quality right now.
I’m trying to stay positive. I’m trying to put off the tears until I know for sure. She’s so young to me still, it’s just so heartbreaking to face losing both of my babies so close together. I really was looking forward to Surf meeting the puppy in a month. Every day I imagined how it’ll be when they meet and the first time she could play and wrestle again. Now it looks like that isn’t going to happen.
Luckily my supervisors have agreed to letting me work from home until we see how this will shake out.

UPDATE!!!
There may be a small ray of hope here! The vet called with the pathologist tests last this afternoon and the pathologist found no sign of cancer in it! So either she just didn’t cough up any cancer cells or it is something else. If it’s something else, we are still no closer to figuring out what it is. The vet was trying to reach the pathologist by phone, so hopefully he will in the morning so they can discuss possibilities.
There was definitely a period of time yesterday when I didn’t think Surf would make it today, but she actually ate a few bites of beef chunks with gravy canned dog food just now and is holding her head up more and walking around a wee bit.
The vet said they can knock her out and do a lung wash to get a better sample of what is in her lungs, but I really don’t think in her weakened state, with her rapid breathing, that her heart could take the procedure. If it’s lung cancer, then there is nothing I can do anyway. We’ll just see what every hour brings us!

I had to take Surf to the vet yesterday. She had been coughing for over a week. Like a cough, cough, cough, followed by a loud and long gag. On Sunday she started coughing up blood so off to the vet!

She had a bit of a fever. The vet swabbed the back of her mouth after she coughed and did a smear on a slide of the blood and goo. It was full of white blood cells, bacteria, some red blood cells, and some mucousy stuff. He prescribed a week of amoxicillian, 500mg twice a day. She coughed when he pressed on her trachea so it’s something like kennel cough hopefully and will go away, or else she’ll have to have xrays and an antibacterial throat wash.

This morning she already seems better and only coughed once before I left the house. I really hope Herc’s dog didn’t get it too.