canine chylothorax 2 - Page 1

I felt the need to post on here because of an earlier post from 2010 (it is 2013 now) on canine chylothorax that may have saved my dog's life (border collie - husky mix).  Thirteen days ago my dog was having trouble breathing, so he was x-rayed and they thought he might have a diaphramatic hernia. Surgery revealed it was chylothorax. They drained 1.5 liters of the fluid and later did a CT scan, but could find no obvious cause (like a lung torsion), making it idiopathic chylothorax. They were draining 500ml a day. He had a second surgery 6 days ago (ligation with a pericardial window), but it did not slow the fluid after two days.  The surgeon said his chances of survival were poor, so I made preparations to give him a couple of good days and then have him put down. We brought him home 2 days after his second surgery, and he was having a lot of difficulties breathing the next day, leading me to consider having him put down that evening. 

However, after reading the post "canine chylothorax" on how a greyhound with similar fluid levels recovered after a week of tapping (it had been 10 days since my dog's first surgery), I decided to tap him to make him comfortable until he was to be put down 2 days later (and was hoping that the fluid level might be lower, giving some hope). They tapped 680ml from him, so I figured we were going to lose him.  But the next day he seemed to feel better and was behaving more like his old self.  So I decided to tap him the morning he was to be put down (again hoping that the fluid level would be low enough to give some hope).  Well, he only had 10ml and the vet said the x-ray looked great!. It is the next day, and he is breathing fine and seems to be recovering.  We are very hopeful and hope this post will help others. We are so glad we did not put him down too soon, but waited.