Tag: vet

More sad news…Ares has left us.

Out of nowhere, we’ve lost Ares. The old guy was limp, cold, and unresponsive Saturday morning. Rushed in to the vet, found out he was at the tail end of a series of hypoglycemic seizures. They stabilized him with a heatpack (we’d given him one for the drive to the vet, too, from Zoe’s old supplies), a dextrose shot, and an IV catheter. He seemed to be perking up and improving, but he still wouldn’t eat.

After about 8 hours, he suddenly took a turn for the worse. He began bleeding in his intestines, as had Jack-Jack and Zoe when we lost them. We’d hoped because he was already in intensive care that there might be some hope, but after consulting with our primary vet and doing more bloodwork, we had to make the choice to let him go; his body was shutting down, and his organ functions were all over the place. When we arrived back at the vet to be with him in his last moments, he was obviously in discomfort and not at all his usual self.

He has been buried next to Draco, with a Kong toy between the two of them; their rivalry in stealing those from one another can continue now.

RIP little guy. I’m just happy you had such a long, rich life, and that I got to see you playing so happily for so many evenings.

Meet Polgara…at last.

Short video of Gara at her first vet visit, with me and a noisy toy trying to figure out if she’s deaf or not. Months later and the jury is still partially undecided there, but we *think* she can hear…but only when it suits her.

Much overdue, but hopefully more videos in the future if this one plays properly for folks; I’ve got a new system for the videos installed that should make them compatible with playing on mobile devices, and also make it easier and faster for me to move videos from my phone to the website.

It never rains, but it pours

Rushed to the emergency vet again last night…Minsc was extremely listless, unresponsive to most stimuli, and had a really low body temperature.

He’s warmed up now and they’re watching him closely. Doing an ultrasound and getting some samples…he’s got fluid in his abdomen, which is not a good sign. We’ll know more when they finish the testing.

Update, 1pm

The ultrasound, with mild sedation to keep him still, revealed that Minsc has an enormous mass on his liver. Its large enough that it is displacing his gall bladder and pressing on other organs. He also has from freestanding blood in his abdominal cavity. The liver mass has a very high index of being a hemangiosarcoma, a rapidly growing, invasive cancer of the blood vessel linings. In essence, it is a time-bomb that could rupture and kill him at any moment. And they tend to be inoperable, but the only way to know for sure is to attempt surgery. He also has a heart murmur, and his body temperature is still extremely low when they don’t keep him in the incubator. I don’t know that he could even survive surgery, so we don’t think it’s the right choice in this case.

We’re driving up shortly to say goodbye. It’s just not fair…

Here we go again…

After several episodes of vomiting, severe lethargy, and unferrety behavior…Minion is back at the vet on another 3am visit. We just got home. He’s still there, getting stabilized with an IV and waiting to get in touch with his specialist vet. More details once she gets in to examine him…for now, I’ve not had much any sleep and desperately need some rest. Poor Michele is even worse off, she has to work in a couple hours. She was a real champ for Minion, lots of cuddles all evening before we decided he needed to go back to the vet.