The Hounds of Heaven News All the news that is fit to gnaw. January 19, 2004
The Hounds of Heaven News 
Fionna was born with a severe megaesophagus which was diagnosed when she was 11 months old. The vet said she would be unlikely to live to be two years old because of repeated aspiration pneumonias. She lived to be two and then three, and then at 3 ½ years old she was stricken with auto-immune thrombocytopenia and was not expected to live. She slowly recovered and lived on to four and then five years old.
At 5 3/4 years old she got a bleeder in her esophagus, and lost almost half of her blood supply. As she was barely starting to recover from that and very weak, she then got the worst pneumonia she had ever had. Amazingly enough she eventually recovered from that and kept on going and living and loving.
At 8 ½ years old the vet took a set of x-rays and said that the megaesophagus was so big that it had pushed her heart out of place. He said, "If I look at just that I would tell you that that is not consistent with continued life. When I look at her lungs and see all the scarring from the pneumonias and how compromised her pulmonary function is as a result, I would say that is not consistent with continued life. Enjoy every day you have with her."
But Fionna has always had a mind of her own and a VERY strong will to live, and she wanted to remain with us for some time longer to grace our lives -- and so she has lived on to be nine and now ten years old!! She is truly our Champion of The Heart and The Spirit.