On July 4th, Steve and I will be married for 12 years. It’s been a fun and wacky ride all this time but we’ve had one constant through it all, and that is our Golden Retriever, Sammy. Sammy, short for Samantha, was about 16 months old when Steve and I had our first date. The first time we met, she was so excited to meet me that she nearly knocked me down. From that point on, she treated me with same affection that she treated Steve.
This June she will be 14 years old – that’s 82 in human years. She has been sweet, loving, and loyal all this time. Outside of having lost her hearing over the last year or two, she’s been amazingly healthy, having never been sick. Until she started aging, that is.
About this time last year, we noticed that she was experiencing labored breathing. I took her to the vet where Dr. Hasenbank did an x-ray and a little blood work. Her lungs were clear and her white blood count was high, which indicated she had an infection. But the doctor noticed that the x-ray showed an unusual shadow at the upper right hand part of her heart. She wasn’t sure what it was. It could have been a mass. It could have been a malformed ventricle. Without further investigation, which required a trip to Michigan State in Lansing (we were up north at the time, about three hours away) and a good chunk of change, we simply wouldn’t know. Since Sammy had always been so healthy and was at that time going on 13 years old, Steve and I decided that investigating it wasn’t necessary. So the doctor put Sammy on antibiotics and she recovered nicely.
Fast forward one year. I woke up Tuesday morning, came down stairs to make coffee, and found Sammy in the computer room. She was having a hard time breathing. I took her to the vet that morning, and she had a fever of 104.5, which was higher than last year. We did another x-ray and a full blood workup this time. The doctor said her lungs looked really good for a dog her age and her blood chemistry was perfect (yeah, Sammy!). She also noticed the same shadow at her heart that Dr. Hasenbank up north noticed, but it didn’t look any larger than it did last year, thankfully. But, once again, her white blood cell count was high, which confirmed what the fever said: she had an infection. Dr. Major put her back on the same antibiotics Sammy had last year and she is once again recovering nicely.
The problem is we don’t know the source of the infection. Dr. Major said that if she keeps getting these infections and on a more frequent basis, that could be a sign that she has a cancer of some sort. At her age, though, it does not make any sense to do testing to find out. We would much rather keep her happy and comfortable than have her poked with needles and put through all kinds of uncomfortable tests.
Steve and I love Sammy dearly but, sadly, there’s a very good chance that 2010 could be her last year with us. She is such a wonderful dog and we feel very blessed to have her in our family. We just hope that however long her life is that she remains as healthy and happy as possible.
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