Originally Posted by
Helena54
Is that right? He says she has e-coli?? She'd be in a real bad state with diarrhea and chronic stomach pains if she had that, but the ab's will of course clear it all up for her, bless her heart. Be very careful what you give her after an episode of that, she's an old lady and needs easy to digest food, so I'd consider changing if you possibly could, to something that's easy on the gut. I would imagine you meant "protein" in her urine there, which is not a good thing, that's what tells them there's an infection of some kind going on, but again, the ab's will be helping all of that.
Glad it's not the cushings, although as I said, it's no big deal, it's treatable. I would imagine they've got to knock her out to get a bladder biopsy too, and that in itself can be dangerous, oh this poor old dear of yours, what she's been through at the vets.
Only you will know when enough is enough, and it's all down to keeping them painfree, with a relatively good quality of life in my book, and luckily we still have that with our old boy with the cushings, and if we didn't then I'm afraid I would have no choice. My last old girl had cancer and she was only 11 1/2, but that was different because when it's something that CAN be cured/dealt with, I would have given her the option, but because I knew in my heart we could never win, I was loathe to extend her days, fearing she would eventually be in pain, and I looked at it this way, if I'm gonna lose her why prolong the agony for both of us with the risk of seeing her suffering, so as always, better a day too soon than a day too late.
All the best with her, have a Google around and see what is involved with that bladder biopsy maybe, or consider just giving her a bit more time to see if the ab's clear up the infection and she gets back to normal perhaps. Sometimes, some of these vets are only too keen to steam on in there on certain occasions and sometimes you have to put your foot down or follow your own gut instincts. If the bladder is infected it wouuld be inflamed wouldn't it, and probably some blood in there, but of course, blood in the urine can also point to more nasties. You've just got to weigh up all those pro's and con's for HER benefit really, she's given you her all hasn't she, so now you have to return the favour to her. I wish you all the luck in the world, it's so heartbreaking for us with our oldies sometimes.xxxx
Hi Egyptgal. For the life of me I cannot remember all this excessive wee'ing quite honestly and he certainly has never been incontinent. Quite the opposite in fact, he can go all day if he can't be bothered to walk out into the garden for a wee and then he wee's for England. He's got all the other classic symptoms though, the pot belly, the excessive panting and he tends to drink like a camel, you rarely see him at the water bowl, but when he does, he fills himself up, but that again could be his laziness (he's old and he's male!)
I see your dilema, why don't you ask about his particular problems I'm sure they won't mind being honest with you, as I'm sure, they too, wouuldn't want him to be returned. He needs somebody like you! Honestly, it's no big deal for us with my old boy, EXCEPT, because he suffers with a bad skin condition, he gets demodectic mange on his belly which we cannot cope with ourselves, so we have to get some help with the ab's from the vet, but that cures it completely.........for about a month max! Cushings affects the immune system, and the immune system controls this demodectic mange on ALL dogs, but it can't keep it under wraps with a dog with cushings in SOME cases, so definitely ask them about that one, because that will be expensive and time consuming. Good luck, I hope you save him.