March 9th 2009 9:56 pm
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I'm so excited that tomorrow March 10th is Georgie's 14th birthday. A little over a year ago, she was hospitalized and the vets did not think she would make it. All they could offer was to open her up, biopsy all her organs and see if they could come up with a diagnosis. At the age of almost 13, the vets had no idea what was going on. She would've needed anesthesia to do the surgery. I didn't think she would make it through the ordeal. The vet even said he wouldn't choose this option for his own dog! I opted out of this course of action and asked for her to be aggressively medically managed. The vets even brought up the "e" conversation which I refused to choose. Within days she was discharged home with the title "Miracle Dog". All of her checkups have been stable since, except for vestibular dysfunction where she would become incapacitated from dizziness. They said it should last 2 weeks and resolve. It lasted almost 2 months. And she has had reoccurences of the same symptoms. We saw a neurologist who said her symptoms do not present like a brain tumor, but we don't know and could do an MRI. This would also take anesthesia, and it would only be for diagnostic purposes. If she did have a brain tumor, there was probably nothing appropriate to her age and condition that could be done. She has been responding to meclizine which is actually for nausea and vomiting related to the dysfunction. It does not treat the dysfunction. The neurologist doesn't know why it seems to work, but she said keep using it! She has learned to compensate very well, and so have we in monitoring and managing her. So again we've opted out of doing anything invasive like anesthesia. If she needs it for something acute, then we'll go ahead and get the MRI. Since then her checkups have shown her to be medically stable. I have aggressively managed her daily at home with monitoring everything from food to walks to poops to cleanliness.

In the meantime, Georgie is happy, eating well and loving her walks. Some days she's a little confused, her hearing and sight aren't as good as they used to be, but either are mine! Some days she runs on her walks and plays with me. Most of the time she follows me and settles next to me - something she never did when she was younger, being Miss Independent! In her birthday photo, she is sitting on Daddy's lap snoozing, loving the attention. We all seem to be coping well. The other dogs still respect her and don't bother her, although they know she's part of the pack. As long as she remains fairly stable, I can't imagine that we need to change a thing.

Needless to say, she continues to be my Miracle Dog. She represents unconditional love and significant history together. Time will be measured by before Georgie and after Georgie.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY little one.

love,
Mom