Brenda Janes
Posted : 9/25/2006 9:31:08 PM
I posted last week in the breeding section my concerns about our female husky. Coco is 18 months old. She was is heat but excreting a lot of blood that had a tinny smell to it. The replys I had told me this sounded normal. She is scheduled to be spayed on Oct. 9th.
Anyway over the course of a week the blood became a watery brown fluid with the same metallic smell. She wasn't eating but drinking a great deal of water. At the same time she was losing her fur (blow out) and I really noticed how thin she had become. Last Wednesday morning she was very lethargic and I phoned the vet who took me in right away. After she did some bloodwork and an exam she told me that she had a fever and her WBC was double what it should be. She gave me a 14 day supply of Amoxillin 250 grams to be given 2x a day. She didn't seem too concerned about the discharge or the smell, saying it was normal.
Thursday and Friday there seems to be little improvement although she was eating a little better, she just wasn't herself. On Satuday I put her out for an hour and when she came in she was limping, I checked her paw thinking she may have stepped on something and she growled at me.That evening she was very sleepy, she slept from about 6pm untill I went to bed at midnight. I woke her to do a pee before I went to bed and she walked like she was crippled up in her hind end. I figured it was because she had slept in one position all night.
Sunday morning was a whole new ball of wax. She couldn't stand up and was very listless. This goop coming out of her had stained up her legs and I didn't want to hurt her washing it up. She wouldn't eat and I was getting scared. I called the emergency number for my vet and discribed her symptoms and she told me she thought it was Pyometra. I should bring her in right away but she warned me outright on the phone that we were talking about a lot of money.
150.00 to examine her, 100.00 a day if they had to keep her in to give her antibiotics interveinously and of course the spay. She figured minimum 800.00. I had just payed 200.00 for the bloodwork on Wednesday and I didn't have any more money. I asked if we could pay it out and she said she had been burned before so often that she demanded her fee up front, which I understand to an extent but my dog was in such bad shape. I couldn't believe she could leave it at that. My husband isn't home, he works as a hunting guide and is in the country for the next week. I put in a message for him to call ASAP but haven't heard anything from him.
Sunday was such a horrible day, Coco was in such obvious pain, I couldn't speak to anyone without crying. After talking to the vet 3 times on the phone, by 6pm I had the decided the only option I had was to put her down myself. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh to you readers, I've read the posts of others that have paid thousands of dollars for veternary services but the truth is we don't have that kind of money, we live from payday to payday. There was no one I could borrow the money from. I live in a small county community where very few people (that I know) feel animals are worth the costs.
If there was a payment plan I could meet the demands but to pay 8 or 9 hundred........I was absolutley devastated, feeling guilty for not seeing it sooner, so distraught at the pain she was in. I tried all day to get her to eat, trying to make her comfortable. At one point when I moved her, I think I moved too fast, anyway she bit my hand. I fell on the floor and just bawled. I had my son and my uncle dig a spot for her beside past pets, found my husband's rifle and called my brother-in-law to shoot her, I was afraid I would screw it up in my condition. But we couldn't find his bullets.
To get Coco outside I asked her to come for a car ride (she loves car rides) and she got up and walked to the door! She hadn't stood up all day! She was real wobbly but she walked. I took her for a ride and when we came back she ate 3 plates of chili, then went to the front room and jumped up on the couch. I believe that not finding the bullets was a sign. I sent BIL home.
Today I could see that she is still ill, but she is not as sick as she was yesterday. I called the vet and am going to take her in tommorrow for some stronger antibiotics, see if that can help. Maybe I'm being totally unrealistic, but my reality is all about the money. The last visit meant a bill didn't get paid, tomorrow will be the same. But if we can kill the infection then I can afford the spay on the 9th. If not, maybe begging the vet in person will have some effect.
I have no one here that understands my love for my animals and empathises with my feelings. No one that I can talk to about how this is ripping me apart. Does being poor mean I shouldn't have a pet? Am I a bad person because I can't come up with all this money?
The vet said as well if she were to do the operation and we didn't have the money she would not release Coco and would charge an additional 100.00 a day for kennel costs. I relly don't know what kind of response I should expect from this post, I just really need to talk about what is happening and if I'm being unrealistic thinking a higher dose of antibitocs will to the trick and but me the time I need.