This morning when I went over to Widget’s House to let the dogs out, I found Kodiak laying in a pile of poop. It was smeared all over him and the floor. The poor guy just can’t hold it overnight, so every morning I have to clean him and the floor. He tries to get out of his mess but can’t, and generally ends up smooshing it around.
The alarming thing is that he could barely walk this morning. I’d hoist his rear legs up, he’d get going, but then he’d walk only about 10 feet before his hind legs would give out. I’d go over, lift him up again, off he’d go … and plop! … down he’d go. Usually once he gets going he can cover quite a bit of ground. Not today.
What’s discouraging is we’ve had no visible response to the prednisone treatment. Today put the exclamation point on that. So I called our specialist in Missoula, Dr. Dave Bostwick, and asked, "Now what?"
Dave said the "what" would be a myelogram to determine if there’s a lesion or tumor on his spinal cord. If we found one that was operable, he’d go straight to the operating room for surgery. Next I called our board-certified surgical specialists in Spokane, who would do that kind of surgery. I spoke with Dr. Howard Lawrence of Veterinary Surgical Specialists about our options for Kodiak.
Howard told me that a myelogram, even at Kodiak’s age, would be feasible and might tell us what was wrong. But, he cautioned, it might turn out to be something that they couldn’t fix surgically. Spinal tumors can be very problematic. He said that sometimes what they find isn’t operable and the animal is euthanized while still under anesthesia. And there was always a possibility that the myelogram might show nothing to explain his problem. Yet it could be the only option we have.
I asked about costs. The myelogram would be about $800-$900. If surgery followed, the total bill would be about $2,000, including follow-up care in the hospital. I told Howard that Alayne and I would have to talk and decide what to do.
This is always the issue we wrestle with: How much can we afford to spend on one animal? We just spent nearly $2,000 on Pappy last month. And yet we have never made a medical decision based on cost.
Kodiak wasn’t the only medical case we had today. Our wonderful cat Wobbles — he has a neurological condition called cerebellar hypoplasia — didn’t look right last night. Sure enough, he had a temperature of 104 degrees. Wobbles had endured a bad case of pneumonia a few months ago … he spent a week in the hospital before recovering … and it started out this way.
We put Wobbles on antibiotics last night and today called our other veterinary internal medicine specialist, Dr. Britt Culver, of Montana Veterinary Specialists in Helena. Britt advised us to start him on Baytril, a high-powered antibiotic, and to keep checking Wobbles’ temperature. If he stays at 104 for another day, we’ll need to get him back to the hospital. His last stay ended up costing $825.
Is it any wonder we’ve already spent more than $22,000 in vet bills so far this year?
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