Thank you everybody for praying for his recovery. According to the vet (not the vet I like, she’s off today), he didn’t vomit today. And the vet took Griz off IV. Griz didn’t have bowel movements, so I have no idea about the quality of his poop. But the vet says Griz most likely could come home tomorrow. The ultrasound is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Please keep your fingers/paws crossed just a little longer.
Today, they brought him into a room instead of letting me see him in his cage in the back. So today I was able to pick him up and hold him while he purred up the storm, trying, at the same time, to explore the room, the attempt he abandoned as soon as the vet entered to give me updates. I could feel he lost a lot of weight because I could feel his bones too easily. I know he wouldn’t eat much at a strange scary place, so I definitely hope he could come home tomorrow so that I could fatten him up.
Talked to the vet. Grizzley ate a little more, but he vomited and had diarrhea. So we are putting him on prednisone. We (hopefully) think he has the inflammatory bowel disease as of now. But tomorrow, we’ll do the ultrasound to see if he has tumor since Thanta, his litter mate, died from gastrointestinal cancer.
The vet called me around 10am to let me know that Grizzley ate some dry food over night. He also pooped and peed. The vet is hoping he would eat more during the day and hopefully I could take him home tomorrow. So that’s the good news.
Not so good news, I wouldn’t call it particularly bad news, is that Brandy’s fecal came back normal – no parasites, which we were hoping for. I say it’s not particularly bad because after giving her a dose of med that makes her stool firmer (and fights bacteria and giardia if she picks it up) , her stool already firmed up a bit this morning. If her stool remains firm after finishing the med, it could just mean bacterial over growth. Otherwise, we’ll go from there. I need to give her yogurt with her food to provide her with good bacteria. At this point, I have to weigh the pros and cons of giving her raw diet any more because clearly, raw diet is not recommended for dogs with compromised immune system since obviously raw meat contains higher bacterial count. We’ll see…
I took Brandy and Foster to the vet. As I suspected, Brandy lost weight, a little more than 5lb, and now weighs about 46lb. When we had the crisis last summer, she lost the extra weight I put on her just in case like that, and was at a perfect weight around October. Now she’s a little too skinny for my liking. Her stool is too soft as well, so we are hoping it’s some parasites since there is some animal who comes in my yard and poop everywhere and Brandy is crazy for the poo. It’s not a rabbit because I blocked any gaps in my fences and I don’t see any rabbit poo pellets any more, after all that rabbit poo my dogs scoured the yard for everyday and stuffed themselves with the delicacy a few months back and had parasites because of that. Fingers crossed for parasites.
Foster, of course, is healthy. The healthiest one in my pack. I have a feeling that he’s never going to get sick, ever, but will one day drop dead from some harm done by his own doing – eating couches or biting himself or some ridiculous thing nobody would have thought a dog would do. Did I say I like my vet? She was able to clip Foster’s nails, and all of them. 2 vets before her couldn’t do it at all. Yes, he was muzzled for the nail clipping part, but not the blood drawing part or rabies shot part.
Now on to my Grizzley. He’s still in the hospital. He hasn’t eaten for 4 days now, so he’s on IV. But the good news is the vet is cautiously optimistic that it’s just some inflammation of intestines. The x-ray taken today looked much better than the one from yesterday – according to the vet, of course, I don’t know how to read x-rays, but I could see a good deal of differences between those two where she pointed out. Something was in the intestines, something huge, could be just some giant furball, which the vet could feel yesterday. Today, that wasn’t there, and according to the vet, it’s moving and hopefully out soon. His stomach didn’t look good yesterday, but today it looked much better as well. His bloodwork came back normal in all accounts so his liver hasn’t been affected yet from not eating. She’s going to call me tomorrow morning.
Grizzley was lying in the back of the cage inside the litter box looking very scared. He even tried to hide behind his bandaged paw with IV when we opened the cage door, but perked up when he recognized me, and looked all confident and everything, which made the vet laugh about it. All in all, we are cautiously optimistic.
Thanks for keeping your fingers crossed. Please keep them crossed a little longer, for both Grizzley and Brandy.
Oh, and about the receptionist. I haven’t talked to the vet about it yet. I don’t want to until Grizzley is discharged.
As I wrote last night about taking Grizzley to the vet today, I dropped him off this morning after fighting with the vet’s receptionist and cried out of sheer frustration this morning before I left my house.
Yesterday morning, when I called the vet’s office, a receptionist named Sheila answered the phone. I asked to talk to the vet, any vet. She wanted me to describe the problem to her instead. So I did. She never let me talk to any vet, but told me if it were HER cat, she wouldn’t wait until Saturday. Duh, that’s why I’m calling! She couldn’t give me any appointment yesterday, but I could bring Grizzley in today. But I cannot take today off – for your information, I have to drive an hour to get to work and the vet is about 15 minutes from where I work, so it’s not possible for me to go to work and have an appointment on the same day unless I can get off early, which I can’t today because half the people in our group are not in the office today. So I asked if I could drop Grizzley off in the morning and pick him up in the evening, and Sheila said of course, I just have to call the office around 8:30 in the morning to tell them I’d be dropping him off that day.
This morning at 8:35, I called them as Sheila told me to do. Another receptionist named Lorraine answered. I told her I was bringing in my cat. She told me that I couldn’t, I had to make an appointment, and by the way was I already their client? So I told her yes, I already made an appointment 2 weeks ago for tomorrow, but my cat stopped eating Tuesday night. She still insisted I could not drop him off. I told her I already spoke to Sheila yesterday and she had told me that I should not wait until tomorrow. She answered, “Well, Sheila is not here, she’s on vacation starting today. You need to come in for an appointment, you need to be there to answer in case the vet has any questions.” I told her that I could not take today off. She told me she could give me an appointment in the evening after work. I told her I get home from work a little after 7:00. She answered, “we close at eight” I told her “I can’t make it there by eight.” She went, “You should have talked to Dr. XXXXX.” I went, “I tried to, but Sheila wouldn’t let me. So let me talk to her.” She went, “She’s not in, she comes in at 2:00.” We were going back and forth with this questions and answers session for what seemed to me like an eternity. When she said “Why don’t you arrange somebody to bring him in for an appointment? Can’t you make some other arrangement?”, a sudden feeling of utter helplessness and the frustration got to me finally, and I started crying and yelled at her, “This IS the arrangement I made. What is this? What am I supposed to do NOW? And how does arranging somebody else bring him in help in ANYWAY answering the vet’s questions when he lives with ME? ” Then Lorraine relented and said OK, it’s just that there was nothing written by Sheila about me dropping the cat off, and why don’t I give her some information to give the vet?
Seriously, if I was able to talk to a vet yesterday and I was told that I couldn’t drop him off today, I would have driven an hour and a half to the Animal Medical Center in NYC last night. Does she think I actually LIKE leaving my pet all day in vet’s office? Why does she think I make appointments on Saturdays instead of dropping them off in the morning and picking them up later? Do I really need this aggravation when my cat hasn’t had any food for 3 days? I was so aggravated that I couldn’t stop crying after hanging up the phone, and when I tried to explain why I was late for work, tears welled up again.
I love this vet. I thought I finally found a vet who is open-minded, is willing to give options to clients who have different philosophy on what’s best for the pets than hers, cares about my animals more than my wallet, is thorough in every possible way, and very knowledgeable in pet care in terms of medicine or otherwise, and is not afraid to say “I don’t know” but willing to do everything to learn and investigate what she doesn’t know. I do love this vet. Too bad I’m seriously thinking about looking for another vet.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
| Blog: |
| yoonamania |
Topics: |
| Pets, Dog, Cat |