This morning I took Shawna to the vet for de-parasitizing. They gave her a thorough checkup. I went back in the afternoon to pick her up but she wasn't ready yet.

The vet says she is between 5 and 7 years old, she has worms in her bowel, she has probably been spayed, and, so far, her heart sounds normal.

She has heart-worm.

They can treat the heart-worm but it will cost us $400! As I keep telling people I have no job. My retirement and Wakana's two paychecks are our only sources of income.

When Wakana and I finally caught up with each other this evening I told her all about it. She knows all about heart-worm. Her beagle died of it 25 years ago and the memory is still painful. I had known of her beagle and that it had died but I thought it had been hit by a car.

So she is determined to save this dog. Tomorrow I will call the vet and get them started on the treatments. Shawna will be in the hospital for a week, they will give her a set of poisonous injections to kill off the worms and then she will have to recover. When we get her back she should be a brand new (very expensive) dog with absolutely no parasites in her at all.