Trouble Breathing

Saturday, October 25, 2008
4:00AM
This is the hardest part for Bella...breathing problems in the evening and night. She's been pretty bad tonight. She's had Temiril P, Mucinex and her Inhaler 4 or 5 times but she's
having a hard time. She just got up and wanted to eat so I fed her and gave her another Mucinex. Hopefully she will settle down. It's very hard to watch her struggle and if her life is
never better than this, I don't know if I would let her go on like she is now....always struggling for air in the middle of the night, up by herself when everyone else is asleep. It's hard and
it's lonely. My hope is that the lung function improves when the heartworms are completly killed.

11:45AM
The rest of the night was the same. It's sad. She had/has a severe case of heartworms so I just don't know what the outcome is going to be. I am just going to try to make every
day as happy as I can for her. I just spoke with a friend and it's her opinion that if the
steroids didn't help and the inhaler didn't help it could be that this is just due to the body breaking down the heartworms and not lung damage which would probably be helped by the
steroids and inhaler. I notice a lot of very small "stuff" in her waterbowl after she drinks a few times and I'm thinking that I'm seeing tiny bits of heartworms. So this would be a good
thing, if my friend is right. That would mean that possibly she would be much better after we rid her body of these things. I want to believe the best. I would like to think that her lungs
and heart aren't damaged to the point that she could never have a decent life because she was always struggling for air.

I really love this dog. She is so sweet and uncomplicated and so grateful and happy for her home. All she wants is to be with her family. Even though I know she is tired after a rough
night, if I go into another room, she follows. I just got on the floor with her and massaged her back and gave her lots of rubs and scratches and she loved it. It relaxes
her.

Her coat is so thick and pretty and she smells so nice after her bath yesterday. She looks beautiful....the way she deserves to look....such a beautiful girl.

One of the neighbors was saying how pretty she is and how beautiful her markings
are and I have to agree. She is perfect......and she is loved.

6:45PM
Bella has had a great day. I guess what I'm seeing during her periods of respiratory distress is the removal of the heartworms from her body, rather than permanent damage. I
hope so. I'm going to try to wait until we are completely through the entire treatment in another 5 weeks or so before I get too upset. It's just that in the middle of the night when
she is struggling and I can't help her, everything always looks grim.

My son came over today and stayed with her while I went to Mass. She was happy and lively and, of course, he loves her. He told me that he went up to take a shower at one point.
When he came back down, I guess Bella had forgotten he was upstairs and isn't used to others being in the house and when he came around the corner she came up and as he described
it, had a very protective, defending stance. I think it took him by surprise and all he said was that he was really glad I had her, so she will protect me. Cute :)

I've been out in public with her before and she is the kind of dog that people respect
and I've seen a couple of "interesting characters" who didn't seem to want to mess with her. Smart thinking on their part.