Where did my wee Dane puppy go??

Goodness our wee Flirty is growing like a weed!! She seemed SO tiny when I brought her home and then all of a sudden she went through a huge growth spurt.  Now she actually seems to be growing right before our eyes! 

We had a bit of an interesting month and I just hope and pray that we are able to move past what we had to deal with and can look to the future.  Here's the story...The day after I brought Flirt home at 8 weeks she started having green nasal discharge.  She didn't have ANY other symptoms but I rushed her off to the vet and she started antibiotics.  We assumed it was some sort of upper respiratory infection.  Discharge went away a few days after starting meds and all was well until about 3 days after the meds were done...nasal discharge came back.  Back to the vet and a new course of antibiotics.  Exact same thing happens.  At this point I am getting pretty annoyed that we can't seem to get rid of the problem and she acts completely normal otherwise.  

The final time the nasal dishcarge came back I noticed that when she was drinking water out of her bowl there was a little bit of water and discharge coming from her nose while she drank. We went to the vet, yet again, and the vet gave her a thorough physical exam, including looking in her mouth.  Clear chest, no fever, good color...nothing but the nasal discharge.  I told the vet what I noticed about Flirty drinking and he agreed that wasn't normal.  He had me hold her and he opened her mouth REALLY wide and we found the problem.  She had an issue going on in the back of her throat/mouth...WAY back there.  You would not see it unless you opened her mouth all the way, pushed  her tongue down and looked deep in there..  On the left side of her throat there was a skin adhesion where there was a flap of skin adhered in the wrong spot....which was allowing food particles/ and water to get up into her nasal cavity.  Which of course was causing the recurrent infections up in there and the recurrent green nasal discharge. 

The vet said he had never personally seen anything like this and recommend I go see a surgeon.  We went to see the surgeon a few days later and he confirmed what my vet saw.  The surgeon also mentioned how unusual the problem was. It is very rare for there to be a soft palate issue without the hard palate being involved and Flirt has no issues with her hard palate.  This was something that could only be fixed with a surgical repair.  :( They happened to have time that day and we decided to do the surgery right away. (They had me withhold food that day before her appointment just in case they had to sedate her to see the problem)  So the surgeon reconstructed that bit of her throat and put in dissolvable sutures.  We are hoping and praying that the surgery holds and they won't have to go in again to redo it.  We have to go back the 1st week in June and they will sedate her and look at the site.  She has had to have her food softened since the surgery and no hard chew toys or bones.  She recovered amazingly fast from the surgery and from the minute I brought her home that night you couldn't tell she had anything done.  

Here are a few pics of our little big girl. :)