My Situation & Questions

Myself, my wife, & my 2 year old are dealing with our 4 ½ year old dog who is dying form Nasal Apergilliosis (a fungus).
I posted this on the Disease & Sickness board to give you all a brief overview.

http://lightning-strike.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2759

We have already spen $8k+ and today we took him for a CT scan and we await the doctors decision to see if 1 more surgery is an option. As each day goes on and his condition worsens, my emotions are all over the place. It is funny, as a kid I always had dogs and we had to put them to rest due to old age. As a grown adult, the whole game changes! We have been his primary caregiver since he was 7 ½ weeks old & he looks to us for all his caretaking. Lately, feeding him by hand has become emotionally difficult b/ he must be wondering what is going on (the only pain seems to be in his mouth when he tries to eat, the fungus is eating away).

My question to you all is how do you deal w/ the guilt? I am going a lil nutz due to the fact he is only 4 ½ and that is to young of an age to put him to rest.
How did you cope w/ that final day?
Did you go with or have someone take him/her?
If you went did you watch?
Do you have feelings of never wanting to get another pet, not b/ u don’t have he love to give, but the comparisons as well as never wanting to go through anything like this again?

I know, possibly 1 more surgery and I still have hope, but the hope is fading? These questions are important to me just for the fact that I have to prepare for the possible worse.

Nasal Aspergilliosis

New member who was steered here by a friend.
Never have looked for advice on a message board but there’s a 1st for everything. Here is my current dilemma:

I have a 4 ½ year old Labrador that has had a deteriorating fungal disease call Aspergilliosis, started in his Sinus. He was 1st diagnosed w/ a certain dog flu in July 05 and was put on meds for 4 months. We then went to a specialist, x-rayed, and they took a sample and it came up realistic for everything (surgery 1). As we reviewed the x-ray w/ the doctor, it was obvious that there was a mass growing and she advised us to do another, more evasive surgery to get a larger piece of tissue (2nd surgery). The results came back positive for aspergillious. A third surgery was performed, this was supposed to kill the fungus and my guy would probably be back to normal w/ some breathing issues and a slight runny nose. After 3 surgeries nothing worked (last one Feb 06)

Over the past 3 months the fungus has spread to his nose & teeth area to the point where it is extremely difficult to eat w/out our help. We recently turned to alternative medicine and a series of IV treatments which help him for a few days and then he returns to his poor state. The last alternative is do another surgical procedure with the current Vet which has shown a lot of promise w/ dogs that have had severe nasal cancer. The challenge my wife and I are facing is over the past year, we have spent a small fortune on surgeries, treatments, etc, and it hasn’t helped. There are 2 options, the 1st being difficult to come to terms with or 2nd, spend another large amount of money for the following:

1)MRI (a must) to even see if there is a chance to kill the fungus. If its too advanced my ?’s r answered
2)Surgery as well as IV treatments to help boost his immune system

My issue is, if the surgery was guaranteed to destroy the disease, with everything vested in the dog, we would do it in a heartbeat and worry about the finances later. They obviously can not guarantee that. There is also no guarantee that his immune system can get back to normal to help fight this and other diseases in the future (50/50 tops).