After months of reading other people's experiences with their beloved hounds, you get a sense that while there are often common experiences, it can also be quite a unique journey. I thought I had some idea about what might happen as we got towards the end, but the last 24 hours have left me completely stunned.

A brief recap - Peda is 10+ year old shar-pei / akita, diagnosed with osteosarcoma in late June 2012. Front left leg amputated shortly after (actually it is her 9 month ampuversary in 12 hours!) A single largish lung met was discovered about 4 weeks ago. Palladia metronomic protocol commenced which has been generally tolerated (with a slight reduction in dosage). Overall, generally pretty reasonable month.

Last 5 days she has been more 'tired'. She has had really weeping eyes (but not infected or anything and not seeming to bother her - just lots of 'sleep' in the eyes). Still eating ok etc and happy to bounce around when heading out for a 'car trip' (walking is not so easy as also now has moderate / significant arthritis). Yesterday (Tuesday) she had review at vet hospital and CBCs were ok (neutrophils up from previous weeks and ok for palladia to continue - but still down on normal healthy range). She had slightly (really slightly) swollen left hock. No obvious pain reactions to usual poke and prod etc.

But by last night (Tuesday night - about 8 hours after vet trip) she was going rapidly down hill. She was breathing fast and struggling to get around, tripping over. She was almost snorting when she breathed rather than usual mouth panting. I gave her some tramal (in addition to her usual 300mg gabapentin) and she eventually settled. By morning, it was a repeat of the night before but struggling even more to get around. I had to lift her outside.

After lots of emails to the wonderful local vet and also her wonderful treating oncologist (who was on a day off!) we decided to get some better pain relief onboard. So added methadone to the mix and she settled in to a good sleep for most of day. She was quite sleepy and a bit wobbly but by mid-afternoon (6 hours later) she was becoming a lot more alert and more mobile.

This morning I really was worried that we were dealing with bone mets and that it was going to be a matter of a day or so if that. The wonderful local vet called in to see her on way home and to have a bit of a look at what was going on.

See - the weird thing is that her front leg really swelled up during the day, as well as her muzzle and lips. She is also running a fever. But she was a lot brighter - and starving! So lots of special food for dinner and she settled down quite happily.

But about hour or so later, there was again the rapid decline and we were back to last night / this morning level of distress. I gave her another injection but she took a long time to settle - I'm now parked on the couch next to her for the night (its 11pm here).

So - earlier this evening when the vet came the thought was maybe she has an infection of some sort. The vet had a good poke and prod and again wasn't really seeing any signs of bone met spread - certainly no real pain response to poking and prodding. Injection of antibiotics given, and also a non-steroidal to help with swelling. The other thing it might be - which would be really unusual - is the fever that Shar-pei's get (FSF). Except she's a mixed breed and as far as I know has never had an episode in her life (although she may have had milder episodes of being off that were never identified).

So at this stage of the day I am totally shattered. I've gone from really thinking this morning that the end was close, to now wondering what on earth is going on. I was feeling much better about things around 6pm, but not so good now. She's clearly unwell - but the question is what is going on.

We are off to the vet hospital tomorrow morning so hopefully we will be able to sort things out. While I know that the end is coming, it just seemed to be so completely out of the blue that my head spun. Now I'm not so sure that this is what is happening.

If anyone else has experienced this sort of thing, I'd be really grateful for some input. The temp makes me think infection, but not really sure what sort. Also the extreme pain seems unusual but I guess it depends what is infected. She is urinating normally (drinking a reasonable amount - it's been hot today).

Wow - what a crazy 24 hours ...

Kirsty and Peda