Saturday, July 26, 2008, 04:36
Dilated Cardiomyopathy
Our Springer Spaniel, Charlie, died suddenly and unexpectedly two weeks ago on Friday, and it has really been bothering me, wondering what happened to him.
I couldn't help but question whether the prednisone might have had something to do with it, since I thought maybe he had a heart condition. So I started doing some research on the Internet.
I discovered that Charlie had a condition called Dilated Cardiomyopathy, and that all things considered, his death was neither sudden nor unexpected.
Dilated Cardiomyopathy is basically congestive heart failure because the heart is enlarged. The more I read about it, the more I kept saying to myself, "That's Charlie, that's what Charlie had." He actually was showing all of the classic signs and symptoms of the condition, except that none of the vets who saw him ever put it all together and figured out that's what was wrong with him. If they had, they could have put him on medication because the condition is treated with digitalis (for the heart), diuretics (to clear the fluid from the system) and blood pressure medication.
It started back when Charlie was 7 and cracked some ribs when I had him out for a walk. I didn't see what happened, but the vet surmised that he jumped over a log and had come down hard on something. He x-rayed Charlie's ribs, and at the time, he said he thought Charlie's heart was enlarged.
An enlarged heart visible on an x-ray is one way to confirm the condition.
At the time, though, the vet said that if Charlie did have a heart condition, he would be coughing. Charlie never, ever coughed, although in the last month of his life, he did try to clear his throat frequently. Clearing the throat, or gagging, is an indication that the lungs are full of fluid because the heart is not working very efficiently.
A few years later when I had Charlie into the vet clinic, they discovered he had a heart murmur. An enlarged heart on an x-ray and a heart murmur are conclusive of the condition.
Charlie had lots of other signs and symptoms, though. He always panted heavily, and sometimes when he wasn't panting, it sounded like his nose was plugged. We thought he had some type of nasal allergy, and according to the articles I read, it is typical for owners and sometimes vets to think the dog has an allergy. But it's not an allergy. It's that the lungs are filling with fluid because the heart is not working very efficiently and it is difficult for the dog to breathe. Charlie sounded like he had a plugged nose for at least the last four years. He always sounded like a freight train when he panted.
Charlie also was rather "thick through the middle." I thought maybe that had something to do with him getting older, but it wasn't. It was his abdominal cavity filling with fluid because his heart was not working efficiently.
Sometimes Charlie's hind legs would tremble, and that, too, was a symptom. And so was the fact that his tongue would turn blue sometimes. That happened the last time I had him into the vet clinic, but when I asked the vet about it, she said, "Oh, he's just excited to be here."
Charlie was getting to the point where he wasn't really crazy about eating, and we had to add all kinds of treats to his food to get him to eat. And that, too, is a symptom of Dilated Cardiomyopathy. And so is the collapsing that happened 4 times the week before he died.
The other thing about Dilated Cardiomyopathy is that it is almost unheard of in dogs under 50 pounds but is more common in dogs over 50 pounds. Charlie weighed 70 pounds. It also tends to affect male dogs more than female dogs.
The thing that really floored me, though, was that the vet articles online said a dog with Dilated Cardiomyopathy, even with medication, will probably only survive with the condition for 6 months to a year.
Charlie had the condition for at least the last 5 years of his life and maybe 6 years.
I keep wondering if I had taken him into the vet clinic on the Wednesday before he died, instead of just going in to get more prednisone for him, and if they had gotten him on digitalis and diuretics and blood pressures meds, would he still be alive.
I think he probably still *would* be alive. But the big "if" is -- would the vet have recognized the symptoms? Charlie had been going to that vet clinic all his life, and no one ever recognized all of those symptoms before. The one vet always asked, "does he always pant like that?" And I'd say, "yes," and she'd say, "well, maybe that's just normal for him." So I think it is unlikely that at that late stage of the game, the symptoms would have suddenly been put all together into Dilated Cardiomyopathy.
The other thing that really gives me pause for thought is -- Charlie had the condition for 5 or 6 years. Any vet who recognized the condition would have expected him to die when he was 8 or 9. But Charlie lived to be 13. He survived all those years, way beyond what anyone would have expected him to live. But the truth of the matter is, he could have died at any time during the last 5 or 6 years. Because the heart is enlarged, it does not work very efficiently, and eventually, it just wears out and can't go on anymore.
The other thing I found out about Dilated Cardiomyopathy is that aspirin helps because it thins the blood so the heart does not work as hard. Charlie was on aspirin for many years because of his arthritis from the Lyme disease. So I think the aspirin also helped him to survive for as long as he did.
Dilated Cardiomyopathy can be an inherited condition, passed down from one generation to the next. It can also be caused by an infection. Or by a taurine deficiency in the diet. I think, because Charlie ate Science Diet, that it's unlikely he had a taurine deficiency. Most likely, it was one of the first few times Charlie had Lyme disease that damaged his heart. I can't help but wish the vet clinic had figured it out years ago that the previous Lyme vaccine wasn't working very well and that far too many dogs were getting Lyme disease even though they had been vaccinated for it.
As for the prednisone, I couldn't really find much indication that it made the condition worse. I found references to studies of prednisone and Dilated Cardiomyopathy in humans, and the conclusion was that the prednisone didn't help for the condition, but probably didn't make it worse, either. One article noted that 50 percent of human patients with the condition died within two years of diagnosis and that 80 percent had died by eight years after diagnosis.
Knowing all of this doesn't make me miss Charlie any less. There is a big hole here at Rural Route 2 that only Charlie could fill. But at least my questions have been answered about what happened to him.
And here's the other thing -- the thing that Charlie would want me to do: If anyone reading this blog has a beloved canine companion who pants excessively or gags or coughs or whose tongue turns blue or who seems weak in the rear end or who seems "thick in the middle" or whose appetite is not as good as it should be and there's no other obvious cause for the lack of appetite, ask your vet, first off, to do an x-ray to see about an enlarged heart. Then ask to see if a heart murmur can be detected. Then ask about getting your dog on medication. The vets think that a dog with Dilated Cardiomyopathy will only survive 6 months to a year with medication, but I think Charlie is proof they could survive longer than that. At any rate, even a couple of months more with your beloved companion is worth it because it would give you time to say goodbye. We didn't get that with Charlie.
Rest in peace, Charlie. We love you. And we miss you.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Friday, July 25, 2008, 05:28
Turnips and Oats
I had absolutely no idea that turnips would grow so well in my garden. I have never raised turnips before, so I decided to give it a try this year. I know at one time rutabagas were a big cash crop in this area, and I suppose turnips and rutabagas are not that much different.
We must have just exactly the right kind of soil around here for turnips. The growing conditions this year must have been perfect, too. I've got two rows of them, and the tops are knee-high. There are some pretty big turnips under there already, too. Some of them are nearly the size of a baseball.
It's almost a little frightening to look at those big, bushy green tops. It's like the plants are on steroids, or something. They absolutely dwarf the poor little beets that are struggling and struggling along next to them. And here I was looking forward to beets this year. Out of 15-feet of seed tapes, I got a grand total of 6 beet plants. The carrots did not do much better. Out of 15 feet of carrot seed tapes, I've got about a dozen carrot plants.
But those turnips. Jeepers.
I picked the peas this week, too. They were also a disappointment. The catalog description said they were self-supporting two-foot tall plants. Right. At about six inches tall they started to flop over. They are supposed to be a sugar snap pea, but they are not very sweet. I picked them, snapped off the stem ends, blanched them in the pod and froze them in the pod. I plan to use them in stir-fries. I've got four pint bags of peas in the freezer.
The muskmelon and watermelon are very slow. They are only starting to blossom now, so I don't know if they will have a chance to mature before we get a killing frost. The same for my Roma tomatoes. I have raised muskmelon and watermelon and Roma tomatoes with good success before, but that was in years when we were getting adequate amounts of rain.
The onions, though, are going gangbusters. I think we will have lots of onions to store in the basement for the winter.
Well, if I don't get much else out of the garden, we will have onions and turnips. Randy says he is not very fond of turnips, so I'm going to have to get creative with them . . .
Oats
As they say, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." We were hoping to cut the oats and make oat hay.
Unfortunately, the oats got away from us. Randy was in St. Louis this week for a class for work, so of course, we couldn't cut the oats and bale it. The oat kernels are turning yellow now, and when I pick a stem, they fall right out of the hull. If we cut it for hay, most of the oats would end up on the ground, and the horses would have nothing more than "recreational chewing." They wouldn't get much nutrition out of it. So, we are going to have to combine the oats. I have already talked to my nephew, and he says he will combine it for us.
The oats will not be ready to harvest for another week or two, so I guess that gives me time to find a place to sell it. We will also have to sell the straw.
And now I've got to find some hay to buy for the winter. And we will have to haul it home from wherever I find it so we can get it in the barn. (sigh)
LeAnn R. Ralph