Then J and I decided to get a dog. I'd never had a dog before. J really wanted one. He really wanted a Pug, but we couldn't afford one and ended up falling in love with a little "clearance puppy".
Two years after getting Bowser we went to the pet store to look at fish and fell in love with a little Pug.
She was supposed to be J's dog and Bowser was supposed to be mine, but that's not how things worked out. Instead, J and Bowser seem to have a close bond and Peach and I have a very close bond. I never knew I could love an animal so much.
Shortly after getting Peach we found out she had some health issues. She had an umbilical hernia which thankfully never turned into an emergency and was fixed when she was spayed. It looked like she had an "outie" bellybutton. She also has knee problems in her back legs. We were told that some dogs grow out of it, some don't. Peach didn't. She now has arthritis in her back legs and has struggled with jumping since she was very little. During her first exam it was discovered she had "kennel cough"or Bortadella. This was treated with antibiotics. At a later visit for shots it was discovered she had a double ear infection, more antibiotics. This poor little dog has struggled with health issues her whole life. They were all managable though, all until she was a little over a year old.
Peach was back at the vet for another ear infection. They wanted to re-check her once the coarse of antibiotics was done. When I brought her back in I mentioned that she had been having some accidents around the house which was unusual for her. The vet decided to do a urinalysis to check for a UTI. It came back positive. She got put on antibiotics and two weeks later was better. Fast forward two months and she is going out a lot more than usual. We had our first snowfall and I happened to see spots of blood where she had gone and she was straining. Then she kept wanting to go out and nothing would come out. I called the vet and they said bring her in right away. It was after hours so we rushed her over. The took some x-rays and a urine sample. The vet brought us back to show us the x-rays. She had several stones in her bladder. The vet couldn't see any blockages and said it was rare for females to get a blockage, but given her symptoms it sounded possible. She sent us home and said if Peach was not urinating within 8 hours we had to take her to the animal hospital because that meant she was blocked and could become septic.
We watched and waited. 4am rolled around and she still couldn't go. We drove 40 min. to the top hospital in the area where they decided to try and flush saline into her bladder to get the stone unblocked. They gave her some pain medicine and before they took her back to do the flush she had passed two stones in the kennel. Poor baby. After that she seemed to be fine and we took her home. She had been put on a special diet along with antibiotics to dissolve the stones.
The next evening the same thing happened again. We waited to see if she could pass it on her own but 4am came again with no success. This time the hospital was having trouble flushing the stone and finally after some work they were able to flush it. The vet told us it was time to seriously consider having surgery to remove the stones. I called our vet and was able to get her in for surgery that morning. Peach's temp was low so they wrapped her in a blanket along with her catheter and I transported her with the heat blasting to our vet where they performed the surgery. It was successful and she came home the next day.
Six months later she got another UTI. The first round of antibiotics was not successful and she had to take another round for a month before the infection was treated. This happened right before we got married.
For the last year and a half she has been healthy with no problems (except an allergic reaction that we treated with benadryl)...until now. I should have known it was too good to be true.
Sunday I noticed she was straining to pee. Immediately worry set in. I told J about it and he said he'd noticed her straining the night before too. We got our first snowfall on Saturday and Sunday evening when I took them out she was straining again. I went to look and saw blood in the snow. I started to cry. "Here we go again..." I thought. Monday evening we took her to the vet. They did a urinalysis. The vet said there was "a lot" of bacteria along with crystals. There it was, that word I didn't want to hear. The vet was optimistic saying it didn't necessarily mean stones again. They sent the sample out to be cultured so we are waiting on the results now. The vet also did an ultrasound and said he saw shadows, but it could be her colon making the shadows. The culture results will tell us more. Despite the vet being optimistic, J and I are not. We've been down this road before. Peach just can not seem to get luck on her side. Our worst fear is that she has bladder stones again. If she does I want to do surgery, J does not. After the last surgery J said we weren't spending anymore on her, but I can not bear to see her suffer and I can not bear to give her up. We don't have children, she is my baby.
I am hoping and praying we caught it early enough that it didn't develop into stones. Dogs are so stoic. You would never know she's sick from looking at her. She is on another 2 week coarse of antibiotics. Seeing as it didn't do the trick last time I'm not that optimistic that it will be a cure this time either. I'm just trying not to let my mind wander to the "what-ifs" right now.
The vet said it would be 3-5 days for the results. This is going to be the longest 3-5 days ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment