Bad vet BAD! Don't overmedicate your elder dog
Update: Perogi didn't develop Diabetes all on her own... she was given it by a bad vet!
Perogi was going deaf. I wasn't upset about this. It meant we could watch movies with horses in them (she hates any horse on TV- even a human in a horse suit?) and have a quiet snack if you were out of eye sight.
To be a good dog mom I brought Perogi in to Ardmore to see if her hearing loss was just an infection. The vet shot her up with steroids for her arthritis without asking me, gave her 2 steroidal drops for her ears and an oral steriod. As soon as she started taking all of these meds she began acting CRAZY. I called the vet & she said to stop the oral one. Then she started drinking gallons of water & peeing all over the house. I brought her back & she now had Pancreatitis. This caused her pancreas to shut down & stop making insulin. She had diabetes. Boom. Overnight our lives had changed horribly.
Looking up the meds I found that they have been proven to give cats pancreatitis, this dog is 17 lbs= cat size! I confronted the vet & she denied responsibility.
After starting insulin injections, the peeing stopped, but she rapidly went blind. A common side effect of blindness in dogs is a confusion of the circadian rhythms. Without seeing, how do you know day from night? She was lost. She started staying up all night, barking, whining, needing to go out to poop at 3 am. I didn't sleep more than 2 hours at a time for 6 months. I tried melatonin, CBD chews, Benadryl- it was an exhausting nightmare. Kudos to all of you who had children & managed to keep them alive & hold down a job when they were small!
The diabetes caused glaucoma which led us to see Dr. Isherwood at Veterinary
2 days before surgery- she looks like she's having a seizure!!! She can't stand & her eyes are crazy. I remember that diabetic dogs can have blood sugar crashes so I jam some honey in her mouth & rush her to the Falls Rd Emergency clinic. They have no idea what's wrong. They could run bloodwork to rule things out. It's an hour later now & she seems much better, so I take her home. She's fine all day & night, but the next morning, same thing! As Falls Rd didn't have any ideas, I rush her to the Pet+ER. They immediately diagnose her with Old Dog Disease. That's right, she's got OLD DOG DISEASE!
ODD is a Vestibular disease- simply put, she lost the ability to tell up from down. She was scrambling to find the ground. Her eyes bouncing back & forth look like a seizure, but it's not. $1000 later, they don't know what causes it, there's no cure & it goes away on it's own. Holy cow! It happened 5 times total & hasn't happened since August 20th.
So, back to her vet to see if it's time to re-schedule the double enucleation. By this point, Perogi is sleeping through the night-hallelujah! Stopped whining and seems generally content. Dr. McKenna sees that she's no longer in pain & her eyes aren't getting worse. She says the glaucoma will kill the optic nerve and her eyes will start to shrink.... she gets to keep them! No surgery! The ODD saved her big old eyeballs!!!! She's still 100% blind, but doesn't need to go through the extra trauma & danger of surgery. For now... what else does this old dog have in her future!
With all of these insane vet bills, I have been running a special of $20 for a single sketch with US shipping included. Even without surgery, we have had many thousands of dollars in bills these last 6 months. Her continuing diabetes & glaucoma care is another $200/mo for the rest of her life. She's 13 now & has proven herself to be a tough broad! Get some portraits for friends this Holiday season & help this old gal stay well!
Thank you to the many friends & fans who have stepped up during this hard time. It sure feels good to be loved! And keeps me doing wht I love- staring at pets all day long!
Gratefully,
Spoon
