Hello,
After some time researching I came across this forum. I've read a number of posts and I can see this forum will be a useful source for me.
As of a month ago I'd never heard of Blastomycosis. Now I have!..although there is still a lot for me to learn.
My name is Chris and we have two Border Collies. Bella (5) and Zoe (4).
Here they are a couple of months ago, Zoe is left, Bella is right:
At the beginning of December we were at the dog park and I noticed Zoe was limping badly. I stopped her and we saw what looked like a big blood blister between two back toes.
Took her the vets the day after the day after, they took a look, didn't really have much to say and gave us some meds and some lotion for the foot.
Around the middle of December we got up one day to find Zoe rubbing her eye along the side of the bed. Thinking back I had noticed her eye looking more grey that week, like an older dog, but I didn't think to much of it. I did a little test with a dog treat and I found that she couldn't see anything out of one eye.
Panic set in, off to the vets again that afternoon. This time we had a more senior vet, he said he wanted to take a sample from her foot to check for something very rare. 10 minutes later he tells us that Zoe has something called Blasto. He prescribes the Itraconazole and advises us to go to the eye specialist.
We get her into the eye specialist and we are told that Zoe will never see out of that eye again but the other eye looks clear. The goal at the moment is to try to keep the eye. We now have 2 weeks of loads of drops and other meds. Everything goes fine for about a week and a half and then she started acting bad and rubbing a lot.
Took her back, after a few tests we are told she is currently at a permanent headache level of pain that will get worse and feel like a migraine soon. We are told chances to save the eye are very slim. We schedule to have the eye removed in 2 days. Devastated....
The next day was horrible watching her in pain. She just sat there with her mouth hanging open... Horrible.
The day of the surgery we dropped her off at 7am, by 11 we had a call to say all went well and she is in recovery. We pick her up at 3 and she is in a great mood! Instant relief! She looks a bit scary though! (Don't worry she looks a lot better now 3 weeks later)
Then it's a week of antibiotics and pain killers and now we are on the Itraconazole for however long it may be,
Her hair is growing back and as far as she is concerned, everything is great. She still has the sore on her foot which causes her some problems now and again...
As I say, I have researched but I still have gray areas. Hopefully those will clear up as we go through this thing. We're about $3,000 into it so far and it isn't over yet, but she is our baby....
Here's a few of my questions/comments. If you have any input it would be appreciated.
> Contagious. I read that it isn't and I also read that it may be. I really hope it isn't as I have been face to face with Zoe since it happened. She's getting so much love Bella is getting jealous!
> How Long. How long will she be on the pills? We go to the vets once a month for a blood test to check her liver. Whats the final all clear test?
> Foot Sore. Is this the place where blasto could re-enter? Is there anything I can do to clear this up or will it clear on its own?
> The future. We love going places with our dogs like the dog parks. It's winter at the moment (we live 35 north of Chicago) so we are staying inside most of the time, but what about when it warms up? Can we do the things we like to do again or do I need to baby Zoe for ever and really restrict where we go?
Thanks for listening to my looooong ramblings. I'm glad I've found this place to hear others experience.
Chris
