Mine looks more like a pug but has the nose of a beagle.  She is very cute.  Some of them don't turn out very cute though.  Go to www.puggle.org  There are lots of pictures of them on there.

Low potassium levels could be the cause.  It happens a lot in women who are pregnant and they say to eat more potassium.  It seems to help.

I just had a partial nephrectomy myself.  They were able to save my kidney so I still have both of them functioning.  If they got your cancer early, and it doesn't come back in 5 years, then it probably won't.  At least that is what I was told.