Here is Shayla's story. It is long, but please take the time to read it. After she had her litter (the herd) in Sept 1996, she started itching something terrible. She would constantly scratch her behind and rub her stomach on anything course (the rug, baskets, corners of walls, shoes, anything). We would give her anti-histamines, tried diet change, lotions, etc but nothing worked. She would wear herself out doing this. She was constantly doing this or sleeping. That's all she did. After a year, she kind of stopped, but then we noticed there had been a little lump right next to her vulva and I'd been keeping an eye on it. Well one day I noticed it had been pea shaped (if not smaller before) and was now walnut sized. So we went in and the vet took it out and it was a grade 1 mass cell tumor (MCT or cancer), but didn't know if they got clean margins due to the area it was in. So we kept an eye on it and it didn't grow any further.
Shayla turned 10 in June 2002. She started developing a funny walk (her head sort of down farther than it normally was when she walked) and we just thought it was old age catching up to her. She didn't seem to be in pain, so we never questioned it. She laid around a lot but was active and loved to go for walks and play. Last November 2002, one day she would just be lying there in a down stay position and her eyes would dart all over the room as if something were after her. And she would literally tremble off and on like she was cold. I would cover her up and she would still be shaking. It wasn't that cold out or inside, but then she started like standing in corners or hiding behind furniture and a couple of times I found her under my clothes in my closet. Something that she was not known for. She was also panting a lot. I posted to my rottie list and they said it might be pain. I took her to the vet and he didn't know what was wrong with her and sent her home with some analgesics. He did bloodwork on her and her akaline phosphatase (which is normally like 131) was like 10,000 or something. Apparently this is an indication of some type of cancer. When she was there, she walked in on her own and did not have any problems walking/standing. A few days went by and she would go for a walk, but then sit outside and refuse to come in. I could NOT get her inside as she was shaking and just sitting there. I had to go get a leash and practically drag her inside. She started being more unsteady on her feet but she had quit her panting/shaking/paranoia so we thought the analgesics were helping her. One night, she wanted to stay outside in the hay dog run in our garage so we let her with a few other dogs. I got up the next morning and my husband said she could not stand up. She was paralyzed. To get into our house, you have to go up at least 8 steps, so getting her to get inside where it was warm was a chore in itself. Geez, have you ever tried to lift a 135 lb dog that's basically squirmy on top and dead weight on the bottom? My husband built a gurney for her out of plywood and hoisted her with the engine hoist up to the main level landing. She would lay inside the house and eat and drink fine (her top half was normal but her bottom half was just not moving). We couldn't get her up to go outside to potty and we ended up having to give her Milk of Magnesia to get her to poop (which we put plastic underneath her butt, but she still blew out all over the carpet and all over her). I cleaned her up as best I could and took her back to the vet on Monday. He said her reflexes were just not there like they were before in her back feet but he didn't have a large enough xray machine and suggested I take her to K-State. Thinking that K-State's prices would be outrageous, I knew of a vet that had a new facility where we had gotten a rottie for our rescue at so I called them and they told me to bring her in. We brought her in Monday afternoon before Thanksgiving. They said they would have to keep her overnight to do more testing. The vet showed us the xrays he had taken so far and he said nothing looked abnormal except that her bladder was 3 times the normal size on the xrays. He showed us her spine and ribs and lungs and hips and said he didn't know what was wrong with her. He said she did pee and poop while under sedation for the xrays. So the next day I picked her up and they suggested I go to K-State. I left Tuesday afternoon at 1:30 to make the 2.5 hour drive all by myself to get up there before they closed at 4:30pm. I barely made it and the vet had her get out of the gurney but she couldn't walk. She laid down on her side and I laid down with her as they went into the other room to look at the 14 x-rays the other vet had taken. He came back 5 minutes later and dropped the bombshell. He showed me the x-rays and showed me where there was a dark blotch on the vertebrae that is in the same area that controls back leg movement, urination and defecation and he showed me the other vertebrae that were all nice and white. He said that Shayla's vertebrae had been eaten almost all the way through. He said they could do all sort of x-rays and further testing and do surgery to try and remove any tumor if there was one, but it would not be cheap and no guarantee they could give her back her quality of life. They told me that they simply could not replace the bone she had lost. I asked them about what if I got her a cart so she could get around. He said unless she would tolerate a drain in her abdominal cavity that I would have to drain urine from several times a day, that wouldn't work. He also said that with her spine being in such fragile condition, that even with a cart, she could barely move or even simply sneeze and it could fracture the rest of the spine and she would be in agony and have to be put down immediately. He said withholding water from her so she wouldn't have to pee that often was not any quality of life for her. He was kind and let me talk to my husband several times (who was back at work) to decide what to do before I made the sad trip home. He said he didn't want her to suffer and said to just bring her back home. I told the vet that Thanksgiving was 2 days away and that we could make a really nice last meal for her and let her have all the trimmings and he said unless I could get someone to come and extract urine out of her bladder at least twice a day, that she would be in considerably discomfort because she just wouldn't know she had to pee, but her bladder would fill up anyway, whether or not she had water. He suggested that I put her down the next day. He was kind enough to pull the urine out of her bladder which when he did, he took 2 liters out of her. He then gave her a shot of ace to make her relax on the way home. I had to drive home in the rain on the interstate just bawling like a baby at the prospect of having so little time with her until the end. When we got home, I laid down with her in the van and talked to her until my husband got home. We took her inside and laid her on a blanket. We decided to all sleep in the room with her that night. She had not been whining or crying the whole time during her problem, but that night she did nothing but stay awake and cry and whine and kept looking toward the door.
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