[yorkietalkjilly]

Your poor baby! The little thing(and you, too) have been drug back and forth through the knothole and back yet again! My only experience with pneumonia was when my Tibbe had an episode of reverse sneezing the morning after having had a good old time vigorously chewing on a chewie one evening, which I took away before he worked it down to small enough to try and swallow. He hacked a bit and I wondered if he'd scratched or irritated his throat during the wild chew session. Next late morning, he has a reverse sneezing episode after eating breakfast which took a while to resolve and then half threw up breakfast, mildly RS'd a bit more. I watched him closely after that but soon he took a long nap.

Later that day, he stood before me smack in the middle of the den staring at me, very woebegone, ears out to the side of his head and coughing a bit. After 10 - 15 minutes of this, realized his behavior was telling me he wasn't well and we went to the vet. He x-rayed his chest, said his heart was dangerously enlarged, sent him to Emergency Vet Clinic/Hospital nearby. I nearly wrecked the car getting us there as fast as possible, scared he would arrest on the way! Harrowing! Never been so glad to see a Vet ER in my life!

Re-x-ray and exam at the ER clinic and comparison to his first films showed the ER vet that the heart was normal in size and a cardiac Doppler proved heart function normal but he was diagnosed with very, very early focal pneumonia, likely from aspirated phlegm/vomit during the reverse sneezing session that morning and I was praised for bringing him in so early(as if ANY owner would sit through hours of that poor little woeful creature). Tibbe was put on antibiotics and sent home where he recuperated normally and no problems since.

When I wondered aloud why the 1st vet misdiagnosed him so badly, the ER vet said she could see how the enlarged heart could be read from the first set of x-rays - that it happens all the time! I wondered if she were just trying to cover for first vet, placate me but she showed me on the film what appeared to be the enlarged heart but was in fact part of the lung. I wasn't really convinced that a vet shouldn't know the difference.

I still think a better vet would have known that enlarged heart on x-ray could have been a possible red herring reading and to dig a little deeper on the chest/cardiac exam, that with his history it could be aspirate-pneumonia, B4 scaring me to death and costing me a whole lot of $ in unnecessary ER vet consult, tests and assorted hospital fees as we were there rest of day and early evening.

So now we do very limited chewy chewing in our house and certainly not for prolonged periods. Many of these driven terriers will hurt their mouths or throat enjoying(?) and trying to finish the job of totally destroying and swallowing a chewy given the chance!

Sure hope you get some answers and this baby gets on the right treatment protocol. Please keep us updated and hugs to that sweet baby of yours! xoxoxoxoxo