Beating the Odds Six Ways to Sunday

A dog that’s cheated death as many times as Jakes has should have been a cat. Tied to a tree in the heat of a Texas border town until he was roughly four years old, he’d been starved, burned, and abused. The humans in his life had pulled many of his teeth so they could use him as defenseless bait for dogfighting. Jakes had a rough start.

Kelli Lipson and her husband, Jorn Santegoeds first met Jakes when they fostered him through Rescue Dogs Rock NYC. This gritty group seeks to save the most difficult, urgent, and seriously injured dogs, rescuing them from many places, including south Texas.

“We fell in love with Jakes and decided to adopt him,” said Kelli. “We treated his mange, got him the softest bed we could find, and just loved him back to health.”

Jakes was thriving for the first time in his life. A few years passed, and a routine vet exam revealed T-zone lymphoma, an uncommon, yet slow-growing cancer. A year later, they found a mast cell tumor, which was surgically removed.

“I was now micromanaging Jakes’ health care,” said Kelli. “I’d talked to canine oncologists at the Animal Medical Center (AMC) here in New York, as well as doctors in Canada and at Colorado State University’s Flint Animal Cancer Center to make sure we covered every possible angle for treatment. Fortunately we also had Lemonade pet insurance for Jakes, which has been an important part of his story.”

Now 11, one March afternoon Jakes was with Kelli on the subway and was noticeably unhappy. He normally loves to travel, and he had happily journeyed around the U.S., to Europe, and Aruba. But today, he was miserable. Kelli took him straight to the AMC emergency room.

The ER team noticed a slow heart rate and immediately moved him to the cardiology team, where he was diagnosed with heart failure. He needed a pacemaker, now. Kelli immediately said yes to the pacemaker, but how does a dog move from being fine in the morning to acute heart failure within six hours?

The AMC cardiology team advised that a pacemaker would keep him alive, but eventually his heart would deteriorate further. Kelli wanted more answers. Jakes’ cardiologist remembered briefly hearing about Chagas disease in vet school, although the hospital had never seen a dog with it. They took blood and sent it to Texas A&M, and in a few days, the diagnosis came back. It was Chagas.

Treatment options were limited. Texas A&M advised that they could treat with benzonidazol, although it had poor results in treating canine patients, especially older dogs who had probably had chronic Chagas for several years.

So Kelli decided to dig deep, looking for someone with significant experience with Chagas and found Dr. Madigan on a Facebook forum. Dr. Madigan offered a treatment option using itraconazole and amiodarone that not only would help Jakes get better, it could potentially even reverse the heart damage.

Consulting again with the AMC cardiologist, the options were clear. Kelli could try the benzonidazol, even though chances were poor. Or she could try Dr. Madigan’s option, which Texas A&M said wouldn’t work either. With nothing to lose, Kelli trusted Dr. Madigan’s confidence, and Jakes’ treatment began.

Treatment began in April, with Kelli staying on top of Jakes’ demeanor and dosage management. As summer started, Jakes experienced several fainting episodes. Back to the cardiologist they went, and the recommendation was to turn up the pacemaker. Kelli also called Dr. Madigan, and they adjusted the dosage. The fainting episodes stopped, and in August Kelli and Jakes flew to San Antonio to meet with Dr. Madigan. While there, Kelli asked him to also look at a skin condition on Jakes, because after four cytology tests the lesion had not been definitively diagnosed and wasn’t improving. He recommended having it biopsied.

Once back home, Jakes was significantly improved. No fainting, and at his next cardiology appointment, the cardiologist said, “Kelli, I’ve never seen a heart get better, but Jakes is only relying on his pacemaker about 80% of the time. This is truly incredible.”

At his next visit in February, he was only relying on the pacemaker 49% of the time.

“I’ve never seen this” said the cardiologist. “It’s unheard of. The pacemaker should last another nine years.” At the same time, the biopsy on Jake’s skin lesion that Dr. Madigan suggested turned out to be skin cancer, which was surgically removed.

After completing Jakes’ Chagas treatments, Kelli has shared his story across online communities, encouraging other people get their dogs tested, just like they get tested for heartworm. A number have tested positive for Chagas.

“He’s 13 now, and his whole personality has changed,” said Kelli. “We were lucky that Jakes’ incredible cardiologist had heard about Chagas and that we found Dr. Madigan. Now the entire cardiology team at AMC has seen the treatment work.”

After early years of abuse, T-zone lymphoma, mast cell cancer, Chagas disease, a pacemaker, and squamous cell carcinoma, any other dog would have given up. Not Jakes.