Sheila's LiveJournal

Life with a sick dog seems to have gotten away from me lately. Jack has been sick since the end of May and we still haven't identified the cause. It's most likely a tick-borne disease, but not any of the most obvious ones: lyme, rocky mountain spotted, and so on. We have a daily regimen of pills that take time to crush, add to food, persuade reluctant dog to ingest, discourage eager other dog from sampling, and this we do twice a day. On top of that, he is supposed to be eating two cans per day of super-duper high protein food bought at great expense from the vet – in addition to his regular food. He is so skinny! Greyhounds are naturally the poster children for anorexia , but Jack went down to a walking anatomy lesson where you could count every rib and see the sharp angles of his pelvis and shoulder blades.
                                                                                               
For a while, I had to feed him through a feeding tube because he had no appetite and the lymph glands in his neck were swollen so badly it hurt him to swallow. At least it was easy to get the meds in that way.  He was taking prednisone as well as heavy duty antibiotics to keep the inflammation down. Any effort to decrease the dose of pred made his temperature shoot up and the lymphs swell again. But he progressed beyond that to eating by himself and the specialist actually discussed taking the tube out. He decided to wait a little longer till Jack had put some of the lost weight back on. Jack had other ideas. One evening he cut the tube in half with his teeth, necessitating a quick trip to the emergency hospital. “You'd better take the rest of it out,” I told the specialist, “before he does.” But the vet hesitated – just in case we might need it later. Well, last week, Jack decided “later” had come as far as he was concerned. He not only pulled the whole thing out, he proceeded to chew it up to make sure the vet didn't put it back. Another night trip to the emergency hospital. (Can you hear the cash register ringing in the background here?)
                                                                                               
This time he had an over night stay, x-rays, barium feeds, and another biopsy of the lymphs. The latest samples go to North Carolina State University veterinary school where one of the foremost experts in tick-borne diseases works. (Previous samples went to places in Colorado and Arizona.) This time, the experts have apparently conferred by phone (guess who will be picking up the long-distance tabs?) and think there's a chance it's a rare disease, hardly ever seen on the west coast. In veterinary matters, “rare” translates into “expensive, new-fangled antibiotics which may or may not work.” Jack's primary vet did some research and called me to say that coyotes might be the vector for transmission of this disease. We certainly do visit coyote country fairly regularly, and I've even seen coyotes right here in Long Beach, in the flood channels along the interstates. So it's entirely possible that's what's making him so sick.
                                                                                             
I've given up tracking how much this is costing me. Any time you take an animal to the vet, you know it's going to cost at least as much as one of your own visits to the doctor. And any time your pet visits a facility where “specialists” are listed, you might as well just close your eyes and hand over your credit card. Yes, I have pet insurance (VPI, for those of you who know), but I doubt it will pay back anywhere near what I've spent so far. And to think that an official of the AKC once called ex-racing greyhounds “track trash” and warned that any breeding between them and the kind the AKC sanctions would disqualify the offspring from registration. Jack is one gold-plated piece of trash, is all I can say!