Forrest and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month

Most of you are used to seeing plenty of calming videos of my dog, Forrest, on Instagram. You can get a very good idea of his gentle demeanor by the way his eyes close for a good face rub, or the way he ever-so-slightly leans into an ear scratch. He makes it so easy to fall in love with him, as many of you from all over the country have messaged me to confirm.

For an angel of a dog that deserves nothing but the entire world, he has had quite a rough month. I am finding it difficult to process all of the emotions that come with it at the moment, so I’m doing myself a favor and writing it all down here.

At the end of 2019, my husband and I began to notice Forrest was having greater difficulty keeping up on our outings and play sessions. He was heavily panting at the beginning of walks, stumbling on his hind legs going up the stairs in our home, and just seemed…tired.Knowing his age and medical history and the fact that he is a very big boy, we started giving him a few supplements in his meals to help ease any arthritis that might be developing. Pretty common for dogs like him, right? He was eating it up like a champ but we were not seeing any improvement.

In fact, over the next few months he seemed to be steadily getting worse. His panting was sounding very hoarse and loud, and any quick movements in the yard would cause his back end to stumble and collapse. Not good.

Into the vet we went, where he was diagnosed with a degenerative nerve disease. Forrest has what they call GOLPP, or Geriatric Onsest Laryngeal Paralysis and Polyneuropathy. It’s a genetic disease and unfortunately, not a curable one. But the good news is that there is a surgery that can help alleviate some of the symptoms.

The nerves that are affected by this disease are the ones that control his larynx (the little flaps that open and close in his throat when he breathes, eats, etc.) and oddly, his back end. With this surgery, one of the flaps in his throat is permanently tied back and open, so that he can breathe easier.

This surgery comes with a host of risks, including making him susceptible and at high risk to aspiration pneumonia and risk of drowning.

After learning about this, our wonderful vet did some preliminary blood work and tests to see if Forrest was a good candidate for surgery. Unfortunately, x-rays showed that he either had an abnormally enlarged heart, or a mass on his heart. This meant he was not a good candidate for surgery until we cleared it with a cardiologist.

Okay. One road trip to and from Denver with a very good, but very anxious dog later, and it turns out he has a mild case of canine pulmonary hypertension, most likely caused by the lack of oxygen he has been getting due to laryngeal paralysis. But, with a doctor’s note from the sweet cardiologist and a badge of ‘Best patient ever’, we were cleared for surgery.

The biggest risk of surgery for Forrest is simply going under sedation at his age. He is about 8 1/2 years old, which can be considered old for a dog his size and breed. But I’m glad to say that surgery went well and he recovered just fine from anesthesia. The surgeon that did his procedure informed us that once she got in there, she saw that one flap was completely paralyzed in his throat, and the other one was partially paralyzed. No wonder he was having such difficulty breathing, poor guy.

We were sent off with a very sad and drugged dog and had a few weeks of recovery in front of us. $3000 later.After two weeks of being spoon-fed wet dog food and a cocktail of medicine, we took Forrest back in to get his stitches removed. All looked well!

He had developed a few new noises as he navigated the new feelings in the back of his throat, like hacking and coughing, but the surgeon assured us that those are to be expected with dogs that underwent the tie-back surgery.

A few days after his stitches were removed, we noticed Forrest started reverse sneezing multiple times per hour. It was a weird noise and it was putting him into distress every time he did it, so we tried to keep him calm and comfortable when it would happen. The next day he started aggressively sneezing, so hard that his head would sometimes hit the floor. Sneezes were lasting for a good 3 to 5 seconds each, like he was trying so hard to get a tickle out of his nose. Then we noticed egg yolk consistency drainage coming out of just his left nostril.

Back to the vet.Our vet was concerned that Forrest may have caught something at the facility that he got his stitches removed, since it is shared space with an emergency vet building.

A $300 blood test was ordered to test for a host of viruses and illnesses, to see which antibiotics we would need to knock it out. We also came home with a $200 pack of medicine to essentially stick a bandaid on his symptoms and give him comfort until the test results came back.

Medicine gave him a much happier demeanor and cleared up the mucous discharge a bit. Test results came back negative on everything. We were to finish out the medicine and cross our fingers that it clears up on its own.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way. He finished his medicine yesterday, and today he is already showing those symptoms again, but even worse.

That is where we are now with Forrest. Another appointment scheduled this week to go in and do some more expensive tests that will hopefully pinpoint what is going on and if he has something in his nasal cavity that is causing these symptoms. Another $1000-$2000, at least.

I just wish I could speak to him for a moment and tell him that we are doing everything in our power to give him the comfort and care he deserves.

I also wish vet care weren’t so expensive.