Thanks everyone for all your thoughts, comments and feedback on the heart murmur. Tracy and Iris thanks so much for all of the detailed information about your experiences, and the encouragement, I sure need it. Tracy his murmur is on the left side.

By the middle of last week I had settled down enough to call the vet with some additional questions, I had my list in hand. I too felt very concerned by the fact that it was a grade 3 when it was discovered, and felt worried that maybe something had been missed back in May. Well, I'll never know for sure if something was missed, but my vet did explain that not all dogs start with a very low-grade murmur with gradual progression in severity. She said that it can show up as a more sudden bigger leakage. So I guess that's what happened with Jasper. She said that it will continue to progress and get worse, but there is no way to know if it will be a fast or slow progression. So I just have to hope and pray for a slow progression.

His chest X-ray showed mild enlargement of his heart. We were hoping there wouldn't be any enlargement yet, but there is. Ironically, the treatment is an ace inhibitor, enalapril. He is already taking enalapril for his kidneys and PLN, so he wasn't started on anything else at this point. I voiced my concern that this all happened while he has been taking the medication that is used to treat it, and wondered if things would be worse if he hadn't been taking it. My vet said that the enalapril doesn't act preventatively, so that is not likely. But in my mind I wonder about that, how would it be this bad already when he was already getting the medication?

So the plan is to re-check a chest X-ray in 2 months to see if there is further heart enlargement. She said she is not expecting it to enlarge more by then. If it does, then another medication would be added, Vetmedin. The only problem there is that it can be hard on the kidneys, so that will be a concern. We will re-check labwork in 2 months too. I have done some research and plan to ask my vet about her thoughts on getting an echocardiogram for him before that time.

We got bad news on the UPC also, it has gone up a bit more again and is now 2.14. It was 1.81 in March. So it is slowly increasing.

His previous UPC's and dates:

10/22/12 1.27
01/14/13 3.57
05/06/13 1.49
08/31/13 0.6
12/23/13 1.63
03/20/14 1.81
08/02/14 2.14

So now we are over the 2.0 mark. She said it is a small increase and this is what she expects. Well, it isn't what I expect! There is no change in treatment at this time, we are continuing everything the same.

So that is where we are at. Tracy, I am with you, I feel like I want to wrap him in bubble wrap. And I don't want him running around at all. Not like he really feels up to that most of the time, but on a rare occasion he gets pretty rowdy with Shelby. He has been really subdued and low energy for a long time now, and maybe this has been part of the reason for it. But I will say since about Sunday, he has seemed to be feeling better and more energy, for whatever reason. I'm not complaining, I'll take it!

I admit I have been feeling quite discouraged and down in the dumps over all of this. I'm very disappointed with the UPC, and scared about his kidney status, and now of course the heart murmur issue. Lots of big things to worry about.

But I will end for now with my one good thing for today (actually two good things):
  • Jasper has seemed more perky and like he's feeling better for the last few days, for that I am so grateful. He is also eating pretty well now. *whisper*
  • My air conditioner broke last Thursday morning and thank God it was something that could be fixed by the end of the day on Friday. (Yes, I had to miss a few hours of work!). So we didn't end up without air-conditioning all weekend, or even longer. Even though it wasn't super hot like normal, I don't know what I would've done with Jasper, he wouldn't have been able to tolerate the heat for an extended period of time.


Thanks again for all the feedback, any additional comments are welcome!

Hugs,
Tina and Jasper xo