Help us help Kahlua get on the road to recovery

Hi,

We truly appreciate you taking a moment out of your day to read Kahlua’s story.

To give a little bit of context, Brady and I got our first dog, Kahlua, in June 2022. I have always been an animal > humans type of person and i work full time with dogs, cats and small animals - my whole world revolves around them. We have a second dog, Harlow but he mainly goes by Little Dude, who was a foster fail and they are both very bonded to each other.

Kahlua is a Bernese Mountain Dog/Golden Retriever mix; she is a little under 2 years old.

This all starts on June 18th, 2023. We noticed that the left side of her mouth was quite swollen. She was lethargic and not like herself at all. We gave her Benadryl for a couple days thinking it could be environmental allergies. After showing no improvement, we brought her in to see our vet, who said it was most likely a bug bite and prescribed a pain killer and anti inflammatory for 5 days.

It just got worse, her cheek had formed this sort of lump which was very red, hot to the touch and painful for her. The vet proceeded to do a fine needle aspiration, which is a type of biopsy they do with cells extracted from the affected area. Those results were inconclusive so we were presented with two options. We could do a more invasive biopsy OR try a round of antibiotics and steroids in hopes it’s a simple bacterial infection, which is what we opted for. Once on the antibiotics, the swelling started going down rapidly and she was acting more like herself. Because her lips were no longer as swollen as before, we were able to have a better look inside her mouth which is when we realized she (quite literally) had a hole in her mouth. This happened shortly after the last antibiotic was administered, and back to the vet we went. After all three veterinarians at our clinic had a look, they decided to refer us to a specialist as none of them had ever seen anything like that before. Within a few days of being off the antibiotics, Kahlua’s mouth had swelled up again; her lips were bright red and hot to the touch, her breath starts to smell bad, it visibly hurt her to yawn, eat and drink, there were small spots of pus and blood wherever she would lay her head, etc… On August 10th, we found out that the dentistry specialist would not be able to see us until September 25th, a month and a half away. A few days later, we brought her in to a 24/7 emergency vet because she was in a lot of pain, we still didn’t have answers and it had been 2 months since we originally started trying to help her. At emerg, they sedated her and cleared out the gunk that was in the hole, and put her on new antibiotics. Then the cycle repeats… the antibiotics are a temporary fix, they fight the infection and give her some relief from the pain and swelling in her mouth but nothing more.

At that point, our specialty appointment got moved up, canceled and rescheduled. We got different opinions, different appointments (and invoices) from different vets and they are all saying the same thing: she needs to get a CT scan (which was under repairs at the specialist here). We were 3 months in - 3 months of anguish and stress, and we had not taken any steps forward. It was clear that she would end up needing surgery, and one of the favourite vets we encountered through this whole ordeal suggested bringing her to a clinic that had it all: 24/7 emergency walk ins, specialists and a CT scan machine - however this clinic was in another city/province, 2 hours away. We left at 5am the next day and we were seen very quickly.

To sum this part up as best I can: CT scan showed there was no tumour, it was just an empty fistula. She was scheduled for surgery (September 20) with the “dentist”, to clean it out and close it up for good. Afterwards it felt like tons and tons of accumulated stress and worries had dissipated. Fast forward two weeks of wearing a nylon muzzle and cone to heal, the night before having to bring her for a follow up we had a look inside her mouth…. I can’t put into words what it felt like seeing the hole was still there. Cue surgery #2 (November 1), she had 4 top teeth removed in order to have more tissue to stitch it closed. Lo and behold, 2 weeks later, there was still a hole. We brought her in to be evaluated, and the course of action was to start flushing it twice a day with warm water and a chlorhexidine solution to keep it clean and give her mouth time to heal. During this time she wasn’t taking any medication and the swelling or pain didn’t come back. The vet scheduled us to come back in January 4 so we could go from there.

The worst night of my entire life as of yet - December 29th, 2023: Kahlua was hit by a pickup truck, a hit and run, while we were visiting Brady’s family out of town for the holidays. I will never be able to forget the sounds, the smells, the events that unfolded and most of all, how I felt. In the end she got fairly lucky, but naturally her mouth endured the most damage from the accident.

After having her mouth examined on the 4th of January as planned, we know she’ll need surgery #3 but the vet wanted to brainstorm and reach out to other dentistry specialists she knows to get different opinions. We are all dumbfounded by this medical mystery of a dog. She reached out this week and would like to send in a sample that she kept from her last surgery for a biopsy in order to eliminate an immunity problem before preceding, yet another expensive test.

Brady and I practically live paycheque to paycheque as it is. We have had to finance some vet bills and are therefore in debt. However, if I had to go back in time I’d do it all over again (minus a couple vets which were completely useless and just added to the bills). As we all know, pets are not cheap and money should be set aside in case of emergencies, but nothing could have prepared us for this; from all sorts of consultations to traumatizing accidents, endless different medications to post op supplies, from different procedures, testing and surgeries to gas from frequent travels to the vet who is definitely not next door, I’d be scared to calculate the current financial damage.

Kahlua is so young, she still has so many balls to go fetch, many hikes to take, many cuddles to ask for and many adventures to embark on. She still has so much love to give, and her whole life in front of her. Never in a million years did we imagine being put in a situation where our only two options are to continuously spend thousands and thousands of dollars to try and help her, or having to let her cross the rainbow bridge way too soon.

We never wanted to have to put our own financial burdens on others but it was suggested to us to give this a shot. That being said, we would really appreciate it if you could take the time to share Kahlua’s story with us.

With lots of love,

Chloe, Brady, Kahlua & Little Dude