Of Missing Signs and Hospitalized dogs

“He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.” — Anonymous

Shem is in renal failure. And we’re not entirely certain why.

He hasn’t been right since his neutering surgery. Not long after he recovered, he stopped peeing normally; sometimes he would take ten minutes before he would decide whatever bush or clump of grass was suitable to receive his emissions, and other times he would pee in the house. We knew something was wrong,  and even called our vet to ask if there could be any connection to the neutering and his odd behavior.

Our vet told us there was no way there was a connection. We’re kicking ourselves that we listened.

Two days ago, I took my damn-near emaciated, listless, vomit-prone, non-eating dog to that vet, where his belly was x-rayed, and his blood and urine tested. With the information that there was ” a lot of blood in his urine,’ the vet cautioned us that Shem had kidney disease, maybe cancer and that he needed a lot of fluid. I left him there that night for observation and for subcutaneous fluid treatment and the next morning, was told by Dr. Jim that he recommended I take my dog for an ultrasound to look at his kidneys, as it might be also be  diabetes, may leptospirosis.  Nothing like throwing worst case scenarios at people, eh? Of course I knew something was Very Wrong with my dog, but I didn’t accept jumping the gun until we had more information.  I paid $425, picked my now 39 pound dog up, and put him into the back of the SUV and drove in the pouring rain to the vetrinary referral hospital.

I sat and waited while he was scanned, and then, while Shem curled  up in to a tight ball on the floor under the table,  spoke to the radiologist tech as he explained that the kidneys were normal sized, and not infected, but that there was clearly another reason for his kidney failure. The Internist came along afterward and told me that he needed aggressive therapy, or he would be dead within a week. By the time Bob got there (in tears) at 6:15, tests revealed a UTI – urinary tract infection – which MAY explain his renal failure, if it had gone untreated long enough.  Like, since April 23, when he was catheterized to be neutered. I AM angry, but there still may more behind the renal failure, so we’re waiting for the whole story, via tests, to emerge.

When Bob arrived, he and I had to wait 20 minutes until we could see our dog. While he wiped away tears and was silent, I talked about the rain, the decor, the tile, the whatever. HE looked at me oddly after a moment or two and then apologized, saying he knew I had been there all day hadn’t had a picnic of it. Yeah, while HE had had to be all professional doctor man and keep in his distress over the illness of his dog,  I’d already spent hours pacing, railing, talking to anyone who would listen, and worrying.  Then I started distracting myself. It was almost funny how differently we were coping.

So, what we do know is that as of this morning, he hasn’t vomited, has slightly less awful levels, although he is still severely dehydrated and anemic, but is showing some small improvement. Classic  forest metaphor was employed in the explanation from the overnight doc: “not out of the woods,” but less bad than yesterday and that he’s holding his own.

So far, we’ve paid 31oo for his care, which is totally worth it, but freaksome. We’re hoping he’ll improve enough to be able to come home and be IV’d here, something Bob and I can rig up. It’s too soon to know, but we’re hopeful. He does need at least another ($900) day to see if the antibiotics worked, to monitor his blood levels, to wait and see if he’ll beat this.

Not as coherent as I would like to be, and now, I am headed to the hospital to sit with my boy. Erstwhile Bitey boy or not, he’s family.