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?
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?
