Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Bull Genitalia Wednesday w/ Bonus Watering Can






Look - it's Wednesday and you can see my grass!  Spring is here.  Though not with enough vengeance that I was tempted to swim in the Rez yesterday at the inaugural workout for the summer.  60.3 degree water temp. in combo with a 45 degree air temp. did not sound like a happy way to wake up.  I'm iffy about tomorrow as well and with a big warm-up over the next few days it may be best to wait until next week.  I have Xterra Lory in a week and a half though and I really want to get in the open water before race day so we'll see if I gut it out.  Race day could be similar conditions so I should probably HTFU and get some practice in.

I'm convinced that it's impossible to have a sick dog get into a vet in Boulder.  Cody started having weird head twitching incidents - focal tremors or partial seizures, depending which vet you talk to.  I called last Friday and my regular vet refused to see him until the end of the month.  Someone I know through agility who's also a vet agreed to see him at her home on Sunday night but she wasn't set up to do a blood draw.  Nonetheless I was very grateful.  She did some acupuncture on him and prescribed a drug for neuropathic pain that is pretty benign in terms of side effects, harshness, etc.  She said he had a lot of pain and had very little muscle mass.  I felt bad but we've not been able to do much to build muscle.  He only makes it about 3-4 blocks on leash walks then it's a huge struggle to get him home.  He paces a lot though, in the house and out in the yard, sometimes for an hour or 2 at a time so I thought he was getting a reasonable amount of exercise but apparently not.  Or perhaps he has some kind of wasting disease.  None of the vets suggested that, I'm just guessing.

Anyway, he had another bout of tremors Monday morning so I got him in to Allpets for a blood draw to at least rule out that the tremors are a symptom of some underlying treatable disease.  They got me in for an appointment no problem and were quite happy to take my $288 but now it's almost Wednesday evening and no one has called me back.  They said they'd call yesterday and when I checked with them today they said the vet had a big back-up of patients.  Sigh.  Thankfully he's had no more tremors that I've noticed and he seems fine.  The All Pets vet was leaning towards brain tumor but of course she can't tell without an MRI.  And I'm not spending zillions on an MRI because there's no way I'm putting a nearly 15 year old dog through brain surgery.  His birthday is in July but maybe we should cheat a little and celebrate early.

Mr. Awesome


5 comments:

  1. Poor Cody! Not cool about the vets. Hope it's just a little episode and he improves.

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  2. Wow, I cant believe they wouldnt see you until the end of the month. What kind of vet does that??? Most vets would say, bring him in and we will work him in. Poor guy. I hope things get better for him.

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  3. I know, and I've been a client of hers for around 14 years or so. And it's not the first time. We woke up one morning many years ago to a very sick cat. The office assistant said she'd fit us in but when we showed up she turned us away. We had to go to a stranger, All Pets again, and she ended up putting the cat down that day. So she won't even fit me in for a life threatening emergency. I've got a recommendation for a new vet from an agility friend and there are several vets in the practice so I'm going to give them a try next time.

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  4. Almost 15... wow. Where does time go... He looks just as handsome and debonaire as ever, though.

    And yeah I'd be peeved about that vet and giving them any more of my money. Some things need to take priority and be accommodated one way or another.

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  5. That's pretty odd about the vet you've been seeing for so long. Definitely sounds like it's time for a new one.

    I like the title of your Wed's post.

    Dang older dogs, keep getting, sigh, older.

    Oh, my secret password to post is Lyndurn condition. So maybe that's what he's got.

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