January 2011
For a while now my husband has not been a fan of our vet. He's thought for years that they over charge us, which they probably have been. As my experience with vets is limited I've never had any reason to doubt where we've been going as far as care is concerned, but I told him if he wanted to get a second opinion he could if he wanted to. So since Bandit has been steadily declining the past month or two he decided it was time to do that. Bandit had bronchitis a couple months ago, and the vet had him on a ton of medication. Steroids, pain relievers, allergy meds, anxiety meds- he was taking more pills than us, but not getting better. Sure, he wasn't coughing anymore, but he was also losing weight at an alarming rate and clearly not eating. In fact, he was getting a lot worse- worse to the point that we were sure we were losing him, and taking him for a second opinion felt a little like a last ditch effort to avoid an ugly truth staring us in the face.
At first they thought he might have cancer, which broke my heart. They did a lot of blood work, and low and behold the pup's blood sugar was way out of control. Long story short (too late), he's not on pills anymore, except for the antibiotic he's on because of the pancreatitis the old vet never diagnosed and IV he was on during his four and a half day hospital stay. The other tests they did to check for cancer all came back negative, too. He very clearly has diabetes.
April 2012
Right now he's home, and we're giving him shots twice a day, and having to force feed him because after all of that his appetite is nonexistent, which is normal, especially considering how high his blood sugar was. At one point it was well over 600, so I can see why he wouldn't want to eat. He probably felt terrible, because I know if my blood sugar was that high all I'd want to do is drink the Atlantic Ocean and then maybe just die. Imagine the worst hangover you've ever had. Now double it. Would you want to eat? Hopefully in the next week or so he'll start to feel well enough that we won't have to puree his dog food and plunge it into his mouth so he'll have some nutrition.
The thing is, I feel like a prize idiot. Lethargy. Drinking excessive amounts of water. Losing weight dramatically. All things I know are a sign of diabetes, and I never put them together when I saw them in him. And then there's the fact hat he's been grossly overweight most of his life, and the last time he was in the ER the doctor saw his blood sugar was elevated and thought he may have it. When we checked with our now former vet and they redid his blood work he was in a normal range, but high normal. So I let it go, and it got bad, and then you add pancreatitis to that and it got very bad.
October 2013
Why didn't I see this coming? I mean, at that point we should have put him on a diet to lower his weight and have started to monitor his blood sugars all the fraking time, but we didn't. Now we have to nurse our poor baby back to health because he's rail thin, doesn't want to eat anything (though he does much better with the force feeding than I imagined he would), and has diafuckingbetes.
I feel so guilty. I let him get fat. I fed him from the table. I didn't take him for walks. I didn't pay attention. And we almost lost him because of it. The good thing is that he doesn't seem to care much about the shots, and I can give those to him fairly easily right now. When his strength is back up to normal I'm hoping this stays the same, because even at 45 pounds he still puts up one hell of a fight with the force feeding!
So now we have in our home a diabetic mommy and diabetic doggy, a daddy with migraines, an older doggy who seems to be okay (thought now I'm wondering if we should take Shiva in for a physical all things considered), a Cairn terrier with hip dysplasia that has thankfully not progressed to a point where surgery is necessary, and a baby that laughs and gurgles and delights us all but keeps bringing home a head cold from daycare and passing it around to everyone. (Seriously, I just got over the last one and I'm sneezing again.)
My baby's home.
This Thanksgiving, I know what I am thankful for. I'm thankful for my husband, my family, my friends, my dogs (who are family). For Christmas this year, I don't want things. I don't want movies or toys or clothes or even my entire debt paid off (although if anyone is willing to do that I won't say no.) All I want for Christmas is for all of my family to be here, to be healthy, and to be happy, and I will consider myself a very lucky woman if this happens.
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