Vet Day!

Today was vet day for Melody, Tess, and Waldo. The "crew" and I went to see Dr. Booman, our primary care vet. Tess had a rabies vaccination so she can be licensed, and Dr. Booman had the chance to thoroughly look at her deformity. After her physical exam, she determined that Tess is perfectly healthy and shouldn't have any trouble with her leg!

Melody had blood drawn to check her Phenobarbitol blood levels. While Melody thought it was quite unfair she had blood drawn, I thought it was important to make sure she's on an appropriate medication dose for her epilepsy!

Waldo thought it was completely ridiculous to ride in the car with dogs! He had initially responded quite well to the steroid injection, so today was a recheck. We were very sad to see that, while most of his mouth looks good, he has a growth about the size of a kidney bean under his tongue. It may be just irritated gum tissue, worst case scenario is cancer. The most common form of oral cancer is squamous cell carcinoma, which has no treatments that offer a cure. Cancer may have reared its ugly head yet again...

Dr. Booman also found a growth in one eye that may be a tumor too, we have to watch it closely. At his first exam, it just looked like a little color change. The borders of his ears have started to change since he's been with us, so I asked her to look at them too. With pigment changes and small areas of skin starting to disintegrate, Dr. Booman feels it's probably vasculitis, a lack of circulation to the affected area.

Waldo is now in our "Pawspice" care (animal hospice) program. We will provide palliative care to keep him comfortable and make his remaining "golden days" as happy as possible! If you would like to learn more about pawspice care, please click here.