Last night I went to bed with two normal. energetic little pups. I woke up this morning to aliens.
First unusual thing was that Sadie didn't want to get out of bed this morning. She is a good sleeper and waits till we get moving before bounding out of bed for breakfast. Rob had to call her repeatedly out of bed and finally nudged her out. She didn't want to move. Weird. Then she just stopped at the top of the stairs and didn't want to continue downward for breakfast. Weird.
Then I got up 30 minutes later and went to the bathroom. No Violet to get in my business and be rude? Okay, that's weird. I went into my office where I found two sleeping puppies. They barely acknowledged me. That's weird. I sat down at my computer for a bit then got up and got ready for work. Where are my shadows? Why arent they following me around everywhere I go? I went in and checked on them. They looked at me but didn't move. VERY weird.
I called them out to make them move. Their movements were very stiff. They both stumbled a bit. I went and got treats because I wanted to see them move. I shook the treats and they just looked at me. No interest in moving any further than they already had. It was at this point I knew I had a serious problem. I made them move some more and they both had an odd gait. Very stiff, kinda lame looking. Violet nearly face planted when she hopped off the couch.
Called my vet but they were over booked for the day so I had to take them to the ER vet. Normally I could do this but I am working in a new OB clinic at a new hospital that opened up and there is zero coverage. It's just little lone me and my schedule was packed. So I unfortunately had to send my beloved girls with my husband. I wrote down their medications, their odd symptoms and sent them away while i drove the opposite direction for work.
After a lot of back and forth on the phone, here is the final summary as of right now.
Sadie is home. She acted fine in front of the vet of course. She LOVES the vet. So she totally blew off Sadie as "maybe having an off morning" - when my husband told me this I about blew a gasket. They did a full blood pannel at my insistence and it came back normal. Rob took her home and then called me at work and said "I see it now. She's walking weird and she won't do a sit or a sit pretty - not even for food!" Insert head slam here.
Once I heard from Rob that they were kinda blowing Sadie off I immediately called my regular vet and scheduled another appt with her. She'll be seen first thing in the morning.
Violet is still at the vet. Her blood pannel was normal. No fever for either dog. Violet's joints are inflammed and very painful. She doesn't want to put ANY weight on her legs. They wanted to do a tap to get some joint fluid but decided to hold off because she is on steroids secondary to her allergies. The surgeon is concerned that the steroids will make the samples difficult to interpret. So she'll be going home when I get off tonight with pain management. No more meds until then and we'll meet with the surgeon again on Wednesday to reevaluate her to see if she still needs the biopsy.
In the mean time, I called and spoke with the vet directly. I told her the symptoms of Sadie "came back" once Rob got her home. The vet was concerned about an autoimmune response or cancer but I really tried to impress on them that Sadie is also symptomatic even though she didn't express it to them. Believe me. She IS sick. (The vet is also sending me home with pain meds for Sadie as well, thankfully.) I was just concerned with them doing this expensive, invasive procedure for cancer or autoimmune disorders when it is unlikely to be those since both girls are sick. She still thinks we should because they can culture the fluid for infection, which is fine, but for reasons stated above, we're pausing until Wednesday.
So that is where we stand. I was hoping to get out of work right at 5 but I just heard they added an amniocentesis to my already packed schedule. Great. So much for getting out on time. That much longer before I can be with my babies
I was supposed to get on a plane with Sadie on Wednesday to go to St Louis for UFLY Flyball Nationals. We were going to be on an all staffy dream team on Friday plus our regular team over the weekend. It looks like I am going to have to bail at the last minute. Very sad, very frustrating, and very worrying.
