Dog Parvo Symptoms

In college I decided that I wanted a dog. I was in my junior year and in addition to the fact that I loved dogs, I reasoned that I’d stay home and study more if I had a dog around. Sounds silly, but I was right.

I found Jezebel at the Montgomery County Dog Pound in Blacksburg, Virginia. The price to take her home? $5. Jezebel, a black lab, hound mix was one of those rare dogs who learned every lesson the first time. She had a huge vocabulary and a huge talent for understandnig moods. She was intelligent and we spent a lot of time alone together during one summer semester and really bonded. I have never been as close to a dog as I was to Jezebel.

Jezebel moved with me after college home to mom and dad’s house, she moved with me when my boyfriend and I got married. I thought she’d still be here when I have kids. That wasn’t meant to be. At the age of five, Jezebel woke up one morning with puffy ears. A trip to the vet, a diagnosis of an allergic reaction and some medicine and all was well. It happened again with the same result. About a month after the first puffy ear incident, Jezebel seemed lethargic. The lethargy progressed into pain. She could barely walk.

Another trip to the vet and talk of a possible infection, or a disk problem. An outside chance of cancer, but doubtful because she was so young. Jezebel
continued getting sick in various ways that didn’t seem to fit together. We kept visiting the vet. Finally, after she’d lost 10 pounds and took another turn towards lethargy, we decided to give the vet one more chance. A manual search and x-rays finally pointed the vet in a definite direction. Jezebel’s lymph
nodes were swollen and he thought she had a form of cancer called Lympho Sarcoma. A fine needle aspiration showed mostly abnormal cells. We gave the doctor the go-ahead to do a biopsy.

On Christmas Eve, we got the results. Our girl, Jezebel, at the age of five had Lympho Sarcoma. A terminal form of cancer. I think anyone who has had any member of their family, human or otherwise, develop cancer will understand the helpless feeling that results from finding out such a devastating thing. We found out our dog was going to die. There were options, but time was a key element and it was ticking by on fast forward. We were told chemotherapy could extend her life in a relatively normal state for anywhere from a few months to upwards of 18 months.

But what would the side effects do to our girl? Was chemo the only option? How long would she live without it? Could we feed her anything special that would help? And if we did do chemo, would prolonging the inevitable be worth it?

These are questions that every person in this situation must decide for themselves. But, I was trained to make fully informed decisions. I wanted
answers. I found much information on the web and in the ‘Neurology & Cancer’ board on America Online. We had Jezebel put to sleep on January 5. The
side-effects were proving to be as unbearable to her as the cancer. As I said she was a very intelligent dog. She knew, I think, that she would never be the
same again and did not want to live with poor quality of life. We loved her very much. A small, good part of all of us died with her.

Five dollars bought us five precious years.

The above story was taken from a web site run by Liz. I believe the owner of the material would be happy for the story to be reproduced here.