Aside from the occasional mishap, and her early bout with mange, Molly was a healthy little dog. We heard a lot of horror stories from other dog owners - where injuries or rare conditions resulted in thousands of dollars in vet's bills - but you can count on the fingers of one hand the times we needed to leave Molly at the vet's overnight.
Molly's first medical procedure was when she was spayed shortly after she was six months old. Our vet did not say this when we brought her in, but he used a method requiring just an inch-long incision, so Molly recovered really quickly and without complications. This was the only time we were unconditionally pleased with the care Molly received.
The Mixed Blessing of Veterinary Care
Most of the rest of Molly's health problems arose from trying to keep her healthy. We had the vet clean her teeth exactly twice. The first time was fine. The second time, when she was about seven years old, she reacted so badly to the anaesthetic she needed to spend two days at the vet to rehydrate and get her electrolytes back in balance. We never did that to her again.
Sometime around her eighth or ninth year, Molly's blood tests came back abnormal. The vet said the results suggested kidney disease, or maybe cancer. The next words out of her mouth were that we should subject the dog to a round of chemo therapy.
We were stunned by this, and had trouble believing it was true that our dog was so sick. We asked what would be the other symptoms besides Molly's blood levels. "Lethargy," said the vet, "and lack of appetite." "OK," we said, "you have absolutely not described our dog." The only response from the vet was to tell us to bring Molly in for more blood tests. We said we'd keep an eye on her and they could test her again when she came in for her next annual check up.
Subsequent tests were normal. The result that led the vet to believe that Molly was sick was due to lab technician error.
Second Last Procedure
Molly's penultimate medical procedure was to have two growths removed. Here's an e-mail I wrote in January 2010:
Late last year, we had noticed Molly was worrying a small wart on her right hind leg. It was getting red and inflamed and, when we took her in for her annual shots, we asked the vet if it should be removed.
The vet took some time before she answered. "Sure," she finally said, "and you should probably remove the one on her back, too."
So, two Fridays ago, Molly went in.
We picked her up after work. She'd been given some hydromorphine and a sedative along with two local anaesthetics, so she was a little groggy. Consequently, she wore her "cone of shame" (thank you, Disney) without any fuss or commotion. Bruce carried her the whole way home.
When we got her home, we took the cone off to make her more comfortable, but she was anxious, unhappy, restless and, I think, really hungry. As well, the stitches on her hind leg had not really "taken" and she had bled a lot on the way home.
The blood horrified Bruce. "We should never have done this to her," he said.
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| A view of the shaved patch on Molly's back. |
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| The botched stitches on Molly's ankle. |
In her last couple of years, Molly was troubled - or, probably more accurately, we were troubled - by a cough caused by her collapsing trachea. The condition is just as it sounds, due to illness or advanced age, a dog's trachea will collapse on itself, changing from a circle to a kind of half-moon shape; when the collapsed sides of the trachea touch, this creates a slight vacuum inside the dog's lungs, which causes her to cough. There's no real treatment for the condition and the medicine that treats the symptoms is very expensive.
This was just one of the things - along with being blind and deaf and really not enjoying herself, more about which next week - that helped with the final decision and her last procedure at the vet.
More about that in the next post.
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