Feb 17, 2005 Update: An echo done on Dottie's visit to the cardiologist last week showed no evidence of cardio or other heart disease. Her heart continued to beat irregularly though so Dr Tyrell put her on a different arrythmia drug. He asked to see another EKG this week and she had that done yesterday at Aldie. There has been no improvement in her heart beat and a copy of the EKG was faxed to Dr Tyrell, who called me to tell me to double the dose of the arrythmia drugs. He wants another EKG done in a week or two. In the meantime he had also suggested checking her for tick-borne diseases. Apparently those can cause an irregular heartbeat, as can hypothyroidism. So we ran bloodwork yesterday for both of those. Dottie is already hypothyroid and is on medication, but we'll check to make sure everything is balanced OK.

From Jeannie, Dottie's Foster Mom - Mar 2005: Our Miss Dottie continues to have health issues, bless her heart. She was back at the vets again this week for another EKG. After adding a second arrythmia drug there does finally appear to be some improvement in her irregularities, but recently I've been having trouble with her appetite. She used to be a chowhound, I thought for sure one day she'd eat her bowl given her enthusiasm! Lately though she's been walking away from her meals.... and given that she's on a bunch of meds (hypothyroid, glucosimine/chond, 2 arrythmia drugs and doxy for her lymes/bartonella) 2x a day, it's important that she eat. It's possible that either the second arrythmia drug or the doxy is causing the problem and she'll be off the doxy in another week or so, hopefully. In the meantime I've invested in several cans of different kinds of yummy dog food to see if I can entice her to eat.... She still acts happy, and those anxiety attacks that were so bad earlier this month are now pretty sporadic, thank goodness. Its hell getting old!

Dottie doesn't know she's having any problems..... still enthusiastically eating, happy to go on walks and as always, teasing some of the dogs into playing with her. She does pant a bit more and seems to feel the worst of the arrythmias, but thankfully doesn't have any other side effects of her wild heartbeat! We'll see how the new dose of drugs help and wait for the results of her bloodwork.

Dottie is a really sweet girl and my hope is that we can give her more time. I'll update her web page with the results of her visit with the cardiologist.

Jun 6, 2005 Update: Dottie continued to have trouble with one of the cardiac drugs taking her appetite away so last week Dr Tyrell started her on a new drug, procainamide. One of the side effects is lack of appetite, but we had to give it a try. I just started them on friday, but I'm happy to report that so far Dottie appears to be tolerating the drugs well. I don't know yet if they are helping her irregular heartbeats, but one thing at a time! :o) Other than that she's doing well, although I must say she has really aged these last several months. Still happy and goofy, but feeling her age a bit more now.

Dec 12, 2005 Final Update: It is with a very sad heart that I tell you that Dottie went to the Bridge on Saturday. She seemed OK in the morning, but when I came inside from doing barn work early afternoon and she was standing in the family room drooling. Her abdomen wasn't enlarged, but it was cramping and she was obviously in distress. My ve's office hours were over, but bless her heart she told me to come on down with Dottie. We did some xrays which showed an enlarged spleen and a mass either on her spleen or in her stomach. Also one of her lungs looked like it was partially collapsed. Given all that and the level of distress that Dottie was in I made the decision to let her go.