u/Straight-Sherbert165

11 year old spayed wheaten terrier presented with rapid breathing 5/14. vet appt 5/16, potentially late stage metastatic cancer that had spread to her lungs (but no tumor on x ray or physical exam) or fungal infection. appt with internal medicine, they run ultrasound and needle aspirate a nodule on her lungs , see that it’s abnormal cell growth, but there’s also a lot of inflammation so it’s kinda hard to tell. saw mass deep in her liver, not possible to access without putting her under anesthesia. they gave her days-weeks.
breathing has become more labored over the course of the (albeit stressful, 5 hour vet for her) day. not wanting dog food but still eating chick-fil-a nuggets and other special treats, still drinking, peeing, pooping (little bit of diarrhea after lots of chick-fil-a nuggets today), able to settle and relax. started panting a few hours ago. gums still pink.
how will i know it’s time? do i take her to an emergency vet, or cuddle her until she passes? if she’s struggling to breathe, do i drive the 20 minutes to the emergency vet, or just… ? i have no idea what to do. she hates going to the vet and i want to do at home euthanasia if possible. what do i look for? what do i do?

11 year old spayed wheaten terrier presented with rapid breathing 5/14. vet appt 5/16, potentially late stage metastatic cancer that had spread to her lungs (but no tumor on x ray or physical exam) or fungal infection. appt with internal medicine, they run ultrasound and needle aspirate a nodule on her lungs , see that it’s abnormal cell growth, but there’s also a lot of inflammation so it’s kinda hard to tell. saw mass deep in her liver, not possible to access without putting her under anesthesia. they gave her days-weeks.
breathing has become more labored over the course of the (albeit stressful, 5 hour vet for her) day. not wanting dog food but still eating chick-fil-a nuggets and other special treats, still drinking, peeing, pooping (little bit of diarrhea after lots of chick-fil-a nuggets today), able to settle and relax. started panting a few hours ago. gums still pink.
how will i know it’s time? do i take her to an emergency vet, or cuddle her until she passes? if she’s struggling to breathe, do i drive the 20 minutes to the emergency vet, or just… ? i have no idea what to do. she hates going to the vet and i want to do at home euthanasia if possible. what do i look for? what do i do?

i noticed my 10 year old spayed female wheaten terrier breathing rapidly on 5/13. i hoped it was because of a thunderstorm, so i just monitored her. the next day, on thursday, it was on and off, and she was breathing rapidly again the following day, Friday. we were able to take her in, and the vet discovered that she had a fever as well as had lost some weight (3 lbs) since december.
her lab work came back normal, with slightly elevated red blood cell count. her labs were also normal in december.
they did x rays, and the vet noticed nodules all over her lungs. she didn’t believe they looked like tumors. she sent off the x rays to a radiologist, who said it was either a fungal infection, or metastatic cancer that had spread to the lungs. they said if we wanted to do comfort care, it would be around 2-3 weeks. on a physical exam, she couldn’t find any tumors. she sent it off for a second opinion, and her colleague leaned more towards fungal infection. we ran a fungal panel and have an appt with internal medicine on 5/19.
she’s behaving relatively normally. she has been eating less and is more lethargic, and breathed and wheezes more rapidly after walking up stairs, to her food bowl, or jumping on the bed, so we’ve started carrying her outside to keep her as relaxed as possible. she is able to relax and settle and sleep, and she still barks at cars outside and stands and wags her tail to greet people when they come home. she also stands and walks to a different spot of the couch sometimes, so i feel like she’s okay making non necessary movements if that makes sense. her gums have been consistently pink and she isn’t panting, just breathing rapidly, and wheezing after activity.
the fungal results come back in 3-8 days, so at the earliest could come tomorrow. i just feel so helpless. i’ve been giving her every treat she wants to try and stimulate her appetite and get enough nutrition in her. she’s been thirsty, not refusing food, pooping and peeing normally. i’m hoping that if it is fungal, i caught it early enough. other horror stories i’ve read seemed to have much scarier symptoms.
i know that, if it is fungal, the only thing that will fix it is anti fungals. but i feel so helpless. i just want her to breathe easier and eat more. part of me wants to look into fucking making some salve out of herbs to put on her chest or something. i’m not gonna feed her herbs or anything, i am very much a proponent of actual vet medicine, i just want to do \*something\* to help her. does anyone have any insight, advice, things to look for, things to avoid about fungal pneumonia?
thanks so much in advance. i just want my girl to get through this.