Apollo may have liver cancer....or maybe not

DoWhat

DoWhat

Deplorable
PREMO Member
vraiblonde said:
So my next dilemma is how I'm going to punish that vet who freaked me out, tried to shake me down for thousand$, and more importantly had me seriously considering euthanizing Apollo.

I have already imagined various scenes of extreme violence, but that doesn't seem a reasonable way to go. But I might change my mind.

I don't really have anything lawsuit worthy or that would be my first avenue of retribution. I could lodge a complaint with their parent company but that seems like a waste of time - nothing ever gets done about that stuff. I'll certainly detail my experience in a Google review to warn others.

I'm just thinking of someone who trusts "authority" either shelling out unnecessary big bucks or (shudder) mistakenly putting their pet down based on this psychotic's recommendation. She needs to pay for this and be strongly encouraged to never do it again.

Any ideas?
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Can we please wait until Apollo is nice and healthy and running around?
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
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Grumpy said:
I could be all wrong and you have used this vet for awhile, so you can ignore this post if you wish.
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No, it's a new vet. It's one of those deals where they're corporate owned with an onsite manager and 5 veterinarians, and you don't have one person who is your pet's vet, you just get whoever grabs your file.

Apollo just had his annual checkup/shots in August. The doc gave Apollo a clean bill of health, said he looked good, all the tests came back great, etc. So now less than a month later another vet in that same office says he has liver cancer and needs to be hospitalized, possibly euthanized.

It doesn't make sense to me. Especially since he's now bouncing back from what was wrong with him.

Anyway, I'm not going back there. Apollo's groomer, who I love, recommended someone else so I'll make an appointment and get Apollo in there.
 
black dog

black dog

Free America
kwillia said:
Cancer doesn’t heal like that but pancreatitis does. Keep him extra hydrated regardless.
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He might just need a doggie prostate massage.
A backdoor expression will put a wag in his tail!!!!!

Its a dark job Menello, but someone has to do it..
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

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kwillia said:
Cancer doesn’t heal like that but pancreatitis does. Keep him extra hydrated regardless.
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How do they treat pancreatitis? And what is the prognosis? As in, do they med them and they get better, or is it an automatic death sentence, or somewhere in between?
 
kwillia

kwillia

n/a
vraiblonde said:
How do they treat pancreatitis? And what is the prognosis? As in, do they med them and they get better, or is it an automatic death sentence, or somewhere in between?
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They gave her a camel pack (big injection of fluids) on her back and a pill to take twice a day. She gradually got better on her own. The pancreas had to reset itself.
 
frequentflier

frequentflier

happy to be living
vraiblonde said:
How do they treat pancreatitis? And what is the prognosis? As in, do they med them and they get better, or is it an automatic death sentence, or somewhere in between?
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Customers swore by it and I successfully treated my cat with Primal raw goats milk. In addition to the probiotics, it has organic ginger, turmeric and cinnamon- all with inflammatory properties. Probiotics help boost the immune system and sooth the gut. Found in the freezer section of many independent pet stores. You can go on Primal's website to see stores in that area that carry it.
Though my vet did not recommend any treatment, he said he wasn't surprised the goats milk worked (DUH- than why not recommend it!!)
 
Dakota

Dakota

~~~~~~~
vraiblonde said:
Yes. He's been more active the last 24 hours, his eyes look good, he's been eating well, and his potties are normal. He's still a little shaky but not so anyone who didn't know him would notice.
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Sounds like this might have been pancreatitis. keeping my fingers crossed for continual improvement for sure.
 
Bann

Bann

Doris Day meets Lady Gaga
PREMO Member
vraiblonde said:
Here's what happened, and read the whole thing because I need advice:

Monday Apollo started vomiting his food. He was otherwise perky and normal, so I didn't think too much about it.

Tuesday he was vomiting to the point of bringing up empty-tummy foam and he was lethargic - clearly not feeling well. So I removed his water for 5-6 hours and food for 24 hours.

Wednesday he ate a little chicken and rice for breakfast at 7am, and around noon barfed it back up. Now it's gone on too long and my Dr. Mom skills are tapped out, so I called the vet and took him into doggie urgent care.

They took his temp (normal), then the vet came in and said they were going to do some blood work. She didn't examine Apollo or even really look at him. Tech comes in and takes him off to get blood. Brought him back, and a few minutes later the vet reappears and says his white count is high and his liver enzymes are enormously high, they're going to do another blood test to make sure. She said he's also slightly dehydrated and she wants to inject him with something to re-hydrate him.

So off he goes to get more blood taken and re-hydrate. After the tech brings him back, the vet shows up and says he appears to have liver cancer but she won't know for sure unless she opens him up to take a look. She wants to hospitalize him (to the tune of $1200/day) to monitor his behavior, then do exploratory surgery. By this time I'm upset and crying, I told her I can't justify spending upwards of $10,000 on a 13 year old dog with no guarantees of success.

She said fine, they'll treat the symptoms (vomiting and infection) with medication and see where it goes from there. So Apollo is on an anti-emetic and amoxicillin.

The more I thought about this exchange the more suspicious I became because I hate doctors anyway, and especially vets because so many of them prey on the owner's emotions to rack up big fees. I'm trying to be realistic and not let that come into play, because I want what's best for Apollo but again, I can't justify laying down $10k for them to "explore".

So what I'm going to do is run the course of the meds and see if that doesn't do the trick. If it does, yay. If it doesn't, then that's that. If he does have liver cancer there's nothing to be done about it anyway, and if he doesn't that means the vet lied to me. Either way, I think I'm done with them and will be looking for another vet.

Thoughts? Advice?
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Not sure how I missed this!!

:bawl: I'm so sorry. :huggy:

I think you might remember my experience with Simon -and you probably already have enough advice, and maybe even made a decision. However, a brief synopsis: Simon was 15, and most likely HAD end stage kidney disease, and the Vet wanted to do more tests, and recommended all these treatments. I also didn't trust the Vet Hospital's "advice" (PF Animal Hospital).

I went to another Vet (recommended by a trusted friend) who did TWO tests and made the determination that the kidney disease would not get better and said I COULD do all those other things, but Simon would not get better, and he might get a LOT worse before he passed.

That Vet respected my decision that day, and never made any outlandish recommendations of all kinds of treatments, etc. He also didn't make me feel guilty - which the first Vet did.
 
Bann

Bann

Doris Day meets Lady Gaga
PREMO Member
spr1975wshs said:
Find more of a country vet, who will actually look at and SEE Apollo.

We've lost 3 of our cats to cancer over the years (2 to intestinal lymphoma and 1 to a sublingual sarcoma).
The vets tested and diagnosed properly, but outside of heroic measures, only were able to offer palliative care, which did ease the girls into a least worst ending after several more pretty good months.
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Exactly. I found a REAL country vet.
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
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Dakota said:
Sounds like this might have been pancreatitis. keeping my fingers crossed for continual improvement for sure.
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No idea, but it appears to be fixed now. Apollo is back to his perky self.

I'm looking at pancreatitis on AKC.org and...I'm not feeling it. He doesn't fit into any of the risk cats except that he's part Schnauzer, and the vet didn't see any issues at his checkup in Aug. He also had no belly pain and no fever. Plus when the emergency vet did his blood she specifically said that his liver enzymes were extremely high and didn't say anything about pancreatic enzymes, and I'd think that would be the first thing she'd rule out. (Although she's an evil ghoul and I hate her so who knows what that quack did.)

Anyway, he seems to be fine now. I have no idea what the problem was. I'm going to call the new vet on Monday and make an appointment and see if we can't clear up this mystery.
 
black dog

black dog

Free America
..
vraiblonde said:
No idea, but it appears to be fixed now. Apollo is back to his perky self.

I'm looking at pancreatitis on AKC.org and...I'm not feeling it. He doesn't fit into any of the risk cats except that he's part Schnauzer, and the vet didn't see any issues at his checkup in Aug. He also had no belly pain and no fever. Plus when the emergency vet did his blood she specifically said that his liver enzymes were extremely high and didn't say anything about pancreatic enzymes, and I'd think that would be the first thing she'd rule out. (Although she's an evil ghoul and I hate her so who knows what that quack did.)

Anyway, he seems to be fine now. I have no idea what the problem was. I'm going to call the new vet on Monday and make an appointment and see if we can't clear up this mystery.
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Thats good to hear...
 
Bann

Bann

Doris Day meets Lady Gaga
PREMO Member
vraiblonde said:
No idea, but it appears to be fixed now. Apollo is back to his perky self.

I'm looking at pancreatitis on AKC.org and...I'm not feeling it. He doesn't fit into any of the risk cats except that he's part Schnauzer, and the vet didn't see any issues at his checkup in Aug. He also had no belly pain and no fever. Plus when the emergency vet did his blood she specifically said that his liver enzymes were extremely high and didn't say anything about pancreatic enzymes, and I'd think that would be the first thing she'd rule out. (Although she's an evil ghoul and I hate her so who knows what that quack did.)

Anyway, he seems to be fine now. I have no idea what the problem was. I'm going to call the new vet on Monday and make an appointment and see if we can't clear up this mystery.
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Good grief, this is extremely disturbing! I hope you get to the bottom of it. I'm like you - I don't like it when Vets or techs (or anyone in medicine really) use emotional manipulation. The tests are tests - they have specific results and they MEAN specific things. Geez - how hard is it to just give the facts.
 
Kyle

Kyle

Beloved Misanthrope
PREMO Member
Recovering back so quick, sounds like he may have eaten something they gave him trouble. Is it possible he may have gotten into some thing in the household, or something in the yard? In either event glad he’s doing better.
 
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