A good dog dies of rare 'swamp cancer'

Lola, maybe the sweetest, certainly the smartest dog I’ve ever owned, died this month of pythiosis, also known as water mold infection or “swamp cancer.”
It’s a deadly fungal infection caused by a parasite, Pythium insidiosum, found in tropical and subtropical waters. She likely got it accompanying me into the Atchafalaya Basin.
Now I’m scared to death for Sam, because where Lola went, Sam went, and what she drank, he drank. They can also get it through the nose or through the skin. Infection settles in the lungs, brain, sinuses, gastrointestinal tract, or skin.
In Lola’s case it resulted in a thickening of the intestinal wall that in effect starved her to death. She went to skin and bones in a few weeks.
Local vets couldn’t diagnose it in time. At the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, where she finally wound up, they said they probably wouldn’t have seen it earlier, either. It’s one of those diseases that, when it finally shows up on ultrasound, it’s usually too late. On top of that, it is quite rare.
The internet – now that I know what to search for – says pythiosis attacking the gastrointestinal tract generates fever, vomiting and diarrhea and maybe abdominal pain as well as severe weight loss.
We thought it was allergies and kept changing to ever more healthy and therefore unpalatable food until one morning Lola took one sniff of her bowl and went to where the cat was eating on her perch and looked up at the cat and then looked at me and back at the cat in that inimitable way of expressing herself that I will miss for the rest of my life.
Internet says pythiosis can also hit the lungs, brain, or sinus resulting in head pain, fever, coughing, and swelling of the sinuses. Pythiosis of the skin shows as “swollen, non-healing wounds, and invasive masses of ulcerated pus-filled nodules and draining tracts. Tissue death (necrosis) follows, with the affected skin eventually turning black and wasting.”
I can’t say nice enough things about Dr. Aubrey Hirsch and the rest of the staff at the LSU animal hospital. When they had Lola in canine ICU, Aubrey called us all through the night to update us. It was very clear that they truly care for the animals in their charge.
But I sure hope I don’t have to take Sam over there.