- S
- j
- K
Izzy is my Doberman that I've had the pleasure of having in my life since he was 8 weeks old. He's about to turn 9 but doesn't look or act over 3 years. For those of you that have met him, you know that he is the most gentle, loving, affectionate dog. Everyone calls him the gentle giant. He does not have an aggressive bone in his body. You can pretty much say he's everything that I'm not. The better half of me. For those of you that know me, you know that he's the love of my life and everything I do or don't do is for the health and happiness of him. He's my best friend, companion, confidant, stress reliever, motivation, piece of mind, and my baby.
On February 29th I rushed Izzy to the ER and right away they took an X-Ray of his heart due to known heart issues in Dobermans. That's when they found a lump in his heart and fluid in his pericardium (sac surrounding the heart). They had to call in a cardiologist to examine him and perform a Tap (sticking a needle into the heart sac to remove the fluid). The Doctor informed me that he suspected Izzy has Hemangiosarcoma (a cancer lining the blood vessels). The fluid in the sac was blood from the tumor and it was causing the sac to squeeze his heart. Not allowing the heart to pump blood to rest of his body. Which was why he was struggling to breath. We decided to perform the Tap right away to give Izzy relief. After the Tap, we thought Izzy was ok for the time being but the sac quickly filled up again and Izzy went into shock because the bleeding came so fast. At this point we did not know if Izzy would survive or if we needed to put to him to sleep.
This type of cancer was aggressive and there was no cure. We then made an appointment with an oncologist to get better informed about the cancer and what options are available. The oncologist told me that his tumor was the size of a ping pong ball, and the growth was going towards the heart and surgery to remove the tumor wasn't possible. The options we have is to perform a surgery to cut a "window" (a hole in the heart sac) so that if and when he does bleed again it wouldn't suffocate his heart and die from heart failure. For the surgery alone, it will cost about $8,000.
Given all this information, I've done a lot of thinking, crying and planning. Of course the selfish thing would be to do whatever is necessary to keep him alive with me but I had to do what was best for Izzy. I don't think I could put him through chemo and radiation just for my need to keep him alive. I also don't want him to suffer from suffocating to death from the tumor bleeding into the sac. So I've decided to go through with just the surgery and keep him on the herbal supplements to keep him comfortable as possible till he passes naturally.
I’ve already incurred very expensive bills and would appreciate any assistance we can get. We don’t know exactly how much time we have but any time spent with him will be treasured.
