Maiya's World

It's Always Something

2010-06-15T12:17:00.003-05:00

Well we skipped down to two meals a day since Maiya was becomming a porker, but I think we are going to up it to three again. She looks to have lost a little.

I guess we had some regurgitation last night. I see stains on the dog bed and I just washed the cover yesterday. Plus the dogs are licking it like there is food on it. Soooo gross!

We had to take Maiya to the vet because she has a lump forming on her leg. The doctor seems to think it is a lick granuloma, although she doesn't lick her legs. She does fleabite them.

I get really scared when Maiya gets sick or develops something like a lump. Maiya is 5 years old now. She's already passed her expiration date so little things like this scare me. Fortunately it doesn't sound serious and she got a nice manicure while she was there.

That's all for now! Maiya is laying on her side, on the couch. She's twitching and lets out a little bark now and again. She must be dreaming about cats.

Our Maiya ~ Loving With Megaesophagus Part 4

2010-06-07T20:05:00.005-05:00

I'm sorry that I haven't updated this blog in ages. With three dogs, a teenager, training (for both dogs AND teen), there just isn't a lot of time. Still no excuse for waiting so long I know!!! Before I continue I wanted to get out there that Maiya is doing wonderful, but also pick up where I left of at the insertion of the feeding tube.

Maiya came home with a PEG tube. It was long and scary! She lived with it for about four months before we started contemplating the idea of a more permanent tube, like a low-profile button tube. So we had a Mic-key tube put in and it uneventufully lasted for about six months before she discovered she could pull it out.

The button tube was extremely easy to put back in provided that she didn't chew it beyond recognition, and her stoma wasn't open for very long without it. After about four hours of the tube being out, it became just about impossible to get it back in without veterinary assistance.

We tried all sorts of food for her. She had a huge problem with air build up in her stomach, which caused lots of regurgitation. It was very hard to vent her stomach out with the button tube where it was so easy with the PEG. It was a long two years with that tube, between the stress of finding the right food consistency, her pulling it out, and the fact we couldn't decompress her very well. Overall though, she maintained her weight and life was better for her.

Back in November of '09 she pulled her tube out. It was overnight when she did it and the stoma was open for about 8 hours. The specialist ended up having to put it back in surgically. This was like the 30th tube she had removed and at $200 per tube it was getting very costly. We always had her wear a shirt and then when we couldn't keep watch, like at night time, we would put the bite-not collar on her. Well, as determined as she was, she started getting past the collar, past the shirts, past EVERYTHING we put her in to keep her from getting at it.

So this incident cost about $1300. Less than a week later she pulled it out again. We caught it early enough to get it back in ourselves. Two weeks after that she pulled it out yet once again. This time we could not get it back in ourselves.

It was going to be another specialist visit and another $1300.

Guy and I painfully decided enough was enough with the tube. The stoma seemed to bother her as it was red and oozy. She was constantly trying to lick at it. With tears we decided to just let the stoma close and we would manage her by mouth feedings for as long as we could. We would not let her suffer and at the first sight that her quality of life was diminishing we would consider letting her go.

We started back up with feeding her off the counter and holding her vertical for 30 minutes afterwards. We were feeding her the home cooked diet we prepared blended into a milkshake consistency. We had no idea how long this would maintain her, as it's not like we haven't tried this before, but it's the only choice we had.

She didn't regurgitate for the first few days. Days turned into a week. A week turned into two. Two weeks turned into an entire month! By the beginning of '10 she had gained almost TEN pounds!!! We couldn't believe what we were seeing!!! She, for the first time since we met, looked like a normal healthy dog!

It's now into the seventh month that we let the tube come out. Maiya is at a stable 70 lbs. She was 43 lbs. when we found her. We cannot explain why she is thriving now when feeding this way didn't work in the past. We only tried dog food in the past and didn't switch to home cooked until the button tube, so could it be that it's the home cooked diet? We don't know why she is doing well, but we don't want it any other way!!

She's chilling on the floor as I type this. I wanted to go further into her life with us but I'm afraid it may be two years before I finish so I wanted to get this happy ending out there. She still has bad days and regurges once a day or so but she's maintaining weight so well that she started getting fat and we cut her food back. She's playing like there is no tomorrow too! She plays with the other dogs now and she even plays with toys! Maiya had never played with ANYTHING in the past. Now she's all over the place acting like a nut and usually the one causing trouble if there is trouble to be caused.

The pics are recent ones of our Maiya. I will try to keep updates more often than once every year. Haha!

Our Maiya ~ Loving With Megaesophagus Part 3

2009-03-14T23:16:00.005-05:00

So I started doing my research on what causes megaesophagus and how to manage it. I think we will get into the causes and treatments at the end of this, and for now just focus on Maiya's life.

The first thing we had to do was learn to feed vertical. This was often accomplished by Maiya eating from the kitchen counter and then we would sit with her in the begging position for 30 minutes. She did really well while sitting although you could tell she wanted down.

We started with a soupy consistency of food. She still kept regurging 10 to 12 times per day. Then we moved to a stiffer consistency. She still kept regurging just as much. We then moved to rolling canned food into meatballs and dropping them down her throat. She did ok with that and gained a few pounds, but you could still tell she just didn't feel good. Her breath stunk because she always had food rotting in her throat. No matter what we did it would not make it all the way down.

We did all this for months. Three months to be exact. Finally we came to terms with the fact that this dog was miserable. We were preparing ourselves to put this beautiful girl, so full of happiness and fight, to sleep.

Now by this time I had read about gastrostomy tubes. I always swore I would never get Maiya one but when it comes down to euthanizing a dog who's tail is wagging viciously when going into the vets office, and she's jumping all over the staff happy to see them, you have serious second thoughts!!

I asked her vet to refer me to a specialist because I was interested in a tube. He rolled his eyes and laughed. By the way we do not have the same vet anymore. "Well I must have missed the funny part about that request" I told him, "so once again I ask that you refer me to a specialist."

So he did.

We arrived at the specialists office. He was less than excited about placing a tube because after all a dog with this condition can never be cured so why bother. Here is how our discussion went.

Me: "So we've tried this and this and this, but she is still doing poorly. I've heard that feeding tubes are an option in these dogs."

Dr.: "Yes, but so is euthanasia"

Me: "Yes I am aware of that option"

Dr.: "Why bother because she is going to die anyways"

Me: "Well than that doesn't make her any different than the rest of it does it?"

Dr.: "Well it's your money"

Me: "Yes it is!! So let's put the tube in."

As you can see, doctors were typically less than excited about treating her.

Maiya went in for her surgery one week later. This was her last and final option. It was a very scary thought. Oh my God a feeding tube!!! How scary is that?! How will we ever get the wiggle worm to stay still?! "What if she doesn't do well with it?! "What if it comes out?!" "What did I get us into?" "What if it's more than we can handle?"

All these questions were very very scary to think about, but all we could do was wait and see.

To be continued...........

Our Maiya ~ Loving With Megaesophagus Part 2

2009-03-03T13:11:00.004-06:00

Maiya was so happy to be in the truck and could hardly sit still on the drive home. She finally sat down in the passenger seat and looked so proud. So proud that someone was able to see something different about her. After all, she was looked at by many different people over the two weeks in the shelter and no one was interested. Today was a special day for her.

We get home and I am just dreading her reaction when we meet the first cat. Sunny always greets us at the door when we come in, and Sunny has zero fear of dogs so I knew Maiya would not discourage her from being there. We walk in, Sunny is there, Maiya sniffs her and walks off. All of this that I have been dreading was over in two seconds. Maiya was about as interested in cats as I am football. That's to say she was not interested at all! Haha.

Maiya explores her environment. She meets Bentley but growls a few times at Annabelle. At this point I'm not too worried but a bit concerned as to why she's doing this. As owners of multiple dogs we knew that dogs growl at each other so we still weren't so sure how to take it yet.

I started feeding her three times a day. Honestly, everything was pretty uneventful for a week. We get the test results back and she's negative for everything but her blood work was a mess. She was anemic, had extremely low protein and just about everything else was abnormal. Hmmm....maybe she was just starved. I mean after the week she had gained 2 lbs. so perhaps they just didn't feed her?

Well during this week I noticed she got the hiccups a lot. Hiccups are typically something only puppies get, but hiccups are not deadly so I just found it odd that she always seemed to have them. I also noticed that she "spit up" in her mouth a lot when she burped. Not huge amounts and not even enough to come out of her mouth, but it was like reflux or something. Also she constantly smacked her lips. Weird but again, not really discerning.

She started regurgitating one week after we brought her home. I thought it was vomiting at the time. I started thinking maybe IBD or some other gastro disease. I took her to the vet again and they ran more tests. Nothing conclusive.

There was mention of megaesophagus although the vet wasn't convinced this was the case, but we did an x-ray anyways. I have a feeling the vet that did the x-ray wasn't so sure what he was looking for because he said her esophagus was normal. We went on with further testing to no avail.

At this point she was constantly "throwing up" and I took her to the vet for the last time. I said run whatever tests you need to run. Don't worry about cost, but please figure out what is wrong with this dog. He ran a barium x-ray which is where you feed the dog food mixed with a dye, then proceed to take x-rays as the food is traveling through the system. He called me at work that day. Diagnosis megaesophagus.

I had heard the term before but was unsure of the details of this disease. I didn't panic at first. The vet named off several conditions that could cause this, and also mentioned she could have been born with it but unlikely if she has survived this long without management. I did see the barium x-ray and it showed a HUGE esophagus and the food all caught up in it. It also showed possible gastroparesis, which is the inability of food to move at a reasonable rate through the digestive tract. So we did all the testing for Addison's Disease, Myasthenia Gravis, Thyroid conditions and a few others. Nothing conclusive. Now we are thinking somehow she has just managed to live this long after being born with this.

He gave few ideas for treatment. Feeding vertical and food of a soupy consistency. Reglan to help move the food through faster, and Zantac for keeping the acid of the stomach under control. It seemed reasonable to my uninformed self so we just went with it.

I went home that day after work and researched megaesophagus. Prognosis was not good, but I didn't see that it would hurt to try. I found the Yahoo group for megaesophagus and it was there reading through the hundreds of posts that I got a feel for what we were dealing with. Let's just say my hope was dwindling.

So here starts our life with MegaE........

To be continued............

Our Maiya ~ Loving With Megaesophagus

2009-02-27T21:49:00.006-06:00

This is my blog about Maiya, how she came to be, and our lives together. It's dedicated to anyone dealing with Megaesophagus, those who have dealt with it and those whom have just had this dreaded disease enter their lives.

Our lives were quite content with two dogs. We had Bentley the Beagle and Annabelle a rescue GSD. While I did have a desire to purchase a well-bred GSD puppy I was in no real hurry to add another dog quite yet.

One morning I was going through the ritual of getting ready for work and checking my e-mail before I left. In my box there was a mail from the GSD rescue I had adopted Annabelle from. Annabelle's original rescue name was Zara and while I kept the rescue in touch with her progress throughout the years I never informed them that we changed her name.

The e-mail wanted to check on Annabelle (Zara) because there was a dog with the same age, name and appearance in a local, high-kill shelter close to my house. She was concerned this was Annabelle and we had dumped her in the shelter. I of course assured her this was not the same dog and all was well.

Now it should have ended there but I decided to click on the Petfinder link in the e-mail. There I saw Zara and read her profile. She was terribly skinny in the picture. Her profile read that she only needed to be fed and was great with kids and other dogs. I felt bad for her so skinny and in the pound and when my husband saw the picture he said why don't you go take a look at her in person. This was an adult GSD (2 years old), female, so I knew the likelihood of her getting along with a family of cats and another female dog were grim, but what the heck, I'll check her out anyways. At most I can give local rescues a heads up on her temperament and hopefully one can pull her.

I walk in the shelter and ask to see Zara. They lead me to the back and in this kennel I see this tiny dog sitting in the corner with her head down. She never barked like the other dogs but perked up immediately when she saw I was coming towards her. They gave me a leash and asked if I wanted to take her out for a walk.

All I can say is when I put the leash around her neck is that I never in my life seen a dog so skinny that was still alive. Every bone in her body showed. The picture I saw of her actually did her justice and made her look fatter than she actually was. She had no muscle mass and every ounce of energy had been depleted from her body. She kept up her perkiness though almost as if she was begging for someone to take her home.

I asked the shelter people what her story was. They said the previous owners dumped her and another dog off. They said the owners took her to the vet but the vet said there was nothing wrong with her. I told them dogs that are fed do not get this skinny for no reason and that something had to be wrong. They were under the impression she wasn't fed.

So we went outside and Maiya really perked up. Looking at her outside in the sun made me so sad. To see a dog in this condition and still be walking was a miracle. I knew she didn't have long to live. One more pound lost and she would be gone.

I told my husband about her that evening when I got home. He told me to get her if I wanted her. I still wanted that puppy but I just couldn't' stop thinking about her. We decided to take Annabelle up there to see how they acted together. After all, there are a lot of factors that play into the decision to bring her home.

We take Annabelle up to the shelter and let them meet. There was some resistance with Maiya (Zara) but overall it didn't' seem too aggressive and something we couldn't manage. All in all it seemed it was going to be ok. We felt sure if she could get along with Annabelle then Bentley would be fine so we didn't bother to take him up there. The cats were another story. I totally did not anticipate she would get along with them. While she was small, she was large enough to kill my cats and if she tried when we got her home she just wasn't going to be able to stay.

I noticed she had horrible diarrhea and my first thought with such a skinny dog, an exuberant appetite, and runny poop was EPI. I asked the shelter to run the test when they took her in for her checkup/spay prior to adoption. They had no clue what a TLI was but told me if I paid for it they would have it run. This whole process was a mess. A week went by and they still hadn't taken her to the vet. I was driving up there everyday to visit her and each time I left it broke my heart. She would do this little pig squeal as I walked out the door. She squealed and climbed the kennel gate wanting me to come back.

On the eighth day I was fed up with this shelter's delay and the fact the dog was in such horrid condition. She just didn't have much time for the run around. I walked into the shelter and told them I would take her to the vet myself and cover all costs. I knew with her weight the vet wouldn't spay her but I needed proof of that. The shelter let me borrow her to take her to the vet next door. We ran all tests on her and the vet told me that she would not put a dog under in that condition. I got that in writing took it back to the shelter and off we went as Maiya's "foster parents."

I'll never forget walking Maiya out of that shelter for the last time. I had visited her everyday having to put her back in that kennel. This time we were going for the truck and there was no stopping her! She jumped in like she's been with me for years. She was dying, but for the life of me she was never going back to that place. I prepared myself that I may have to put her down but at least for however long we had her she would know love. Her face was full of happiness. They say dogs can't "show" happiness but I digress. She was so full of life but so close to death. You could tell she hardly had strength but found enough to hoist herself into the car and off to her new life.

Now to await the test results and see how she does with cats.

To be continued............

Puppy Life

2009-01-30T22:14:00.003-06:00

I haven't blogged in awhile because not only have I been at a loss for topics but because we got a new puppy.

One thing I have learned is puppies are always cuter when they are someone elses! Sort of like human children.

Jaeger is a 3 month old male GSD. He came to us at 8 weeks full of sweetness. Within one month he has gone from sweet to demonic!

Life has not been the same since the arrival of Jaeger. There are no longer extended sleep ins. My God you can't even get up, grab a cup of coffee and watch the news. It's wake up, run outside, feed dogs and then play play play until puppy crashes out. Only then two hours later can you start your "wake up" ritual. Of course by that time you have other things you need to do so you try to get your errands all done before puppy wakes up.

Did I mention I am still tired at this point? Probably because we wake up at least once a night to take him out. He doesn't want to go back into his crate but play at 3 a.m. So we play for a bit and watch the dreaded infomercials on television, heavy eyed and with a tug in hand.

Jaeger has devised a set of rules in the house that must be followed.

All socks must have holes in them.

Cats are for chasing and serve no other purpose.

Anytime your owners think you did something bad, immediately do something worse!

Act as if your dying when someone trys to clean out your ears or clip your nails.

Wanna make mom panic? Let one of your ears fall down.

RUN when you have something your not suppose to! Mom needs the exercise.

Spend 30 minutes sniffing outside but poop immediately on the floor when you come in.

Bite the softest and most delicate parts of human skin.

Water bowls in the house are for swimming. What else would they be there for?

If all else fails, look cute. It works every time.

Why We Love Them

2008-09-26T23:32:00.012-05:00

We love them because they are loyal. They never leave our side. Through the good times and the worst times they are there for us. Our faults are overlooked and mistakes immediately forgiven. Their love is completely unconditional.

We love them because they make us laugh. They do not care what others think of them. Their actions are pure, with no egotism, malice or judgement. They are innocence in it's most beautiful form.

Never is anyone happier to see us when we come home on an average day. With every greeting it is if they have not seen us in weeks. They have no past nor future. It's all in the moment.

They have a natural ability to calm us and make us feel safe. They will give their lives for us without second thought. They are our protectors and friends.

There is nothing inferior about the dog. If anything, they could be teaching humans a thing or two. It’s a shame that so many dogs are euthanized, abandoned or disregarded as lawn furniture by their owners. Please give your dog the proper medical treatment, mental stimulation, exercise and care that they deserve. They do so much for us, it’s only fair that we offer them the same kindness, loyalty, and love they have offered the human for thousands of years.

Your pets depend on you. Don’t let them down!