About three weeks ago, Precious began to hide a little more often. We thought that some of it had to do with us moving our furniture around and packing boxes. Some animals are sensitive to environmental changes and react with fear sometimes even if you rearrange furniture.
A few days later, we noticed that she was limping slightly on of her back legs. My first thought was that my two and half year old might have fallen on her or played too rough with her, or our other Himalayan Sealpoint, Presley, might have nipped her. We monitored this closely until the next day she started to fall down, and appeared to be struggling with walking about.
So I took her to our family Vet in Manchester (I’ll keep the names of hospitals and doctors private for now), and the doctor didn’t see the same symptoms or behavior. Precious has always been “keyed up” when visiting the vets, so running on pure adrenalin, she behaved somewhat normally, and vocalized her interest in getting out of the vets office. The doctor examined her and recognized that she was vocal when he touched her hips. We took an x-ray which revealed nothing unusual. He gave her a combo steroid shot and pain relief or anti-inflammatory type medicine.
The next day, Precious appeared back to herself. Moving, eating, scampering around. We felt a sense of relief that perhaps she had just had a bad few days, and was on the way to recovery.
The following day, she slid back into her state of poor movement. And she began circling and circling to the right. She would circle until she would eventual straighten out and head in the direction she intended to go. She also seemed to want to use the walls to guide her along a straight path.
I took her back to our family vet. He opted to keep her for observation. This time even her adrenalin and anxiety couldn’t mask her symptoms. But he and his staff were fairly unsure of what it was; they suggested that it could be a neurosis of some kind – possibily vestibular in nature. Her prescribed two medications: Prednsione 5mg (small pill once a day), and Clindamycin Hydrochloride Oral Liquid Antibiotic (a dropper and a half once a day).
He pretty much indicated that he didn’t know the cause based on his limited technology to diagnose and determine the real underlying cause of her decline. He did pull blood work which revealed nothing out of the ordinary except a small comment about the white cell count. His recommendation was to keep her on the meds and perhaps seek a specialist hospital that could perform more specialized analysis. He appreciated his guidance and effort, and began the next phase.
We called a number of area hospitals, and we settled on a animal hospital in Bolton that that was suggested by some friends of ours in the Agricultural Community; its well-regarded as an upstanding animal hospital that is widely used and recommended. We took Precious up there, but pretty much had the same result. At the suggestion of the doctors, we also had a tested for Feline Leukaemia which came back negative. They opted that we had two choices, keep her there for supportive treatment (IV fluids, super-doses of steroids, etc) or send her to Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine: (Foster Hospital for Small Animals) and get them to diagnose her.
After a few days of monitoring her, and seeing that she was back in decline, on Veterans Day, we took Precious up to Tufts for diagnosis. Personally, I dreaded the long ride up the Mass Pike, and onto Route 30. By this point I had read hours of material on the Internet about what this most likely was based on the symptoms.
The doctors and residents at Tufts were wonderful to deal with. They immediately took Precious in for examination. After about an hour of waiting (which seemed like 10 hours), we were called in for a conversation about the results. The results were devastating. In their opinion she had either disease of the brain, or a tumor, or even a form of cancer. Immediately, my wife and I pretty much broke down. Our worst fears came true. Our loving companion was dying.
The doctor did mention that there was a Neurologist on staff and she offered to consult her briefly. We agreed hoping that perhaps the neurologist would see something less fatal through examination. The doctor brought us back in and pretty much advised that the Neurologist urged that we allow her to examine Precious before leaving or making a presumption about the diagnosis. In fact, we got the impression that between doctors that the neurologist may have sort of gave the general doctor a hard time for not making the referral to begin with. The only downer was that we would need to wait at least two hours before the neurologist could see her (and the doctor told us that when a doctor says two hours, it usually means two and a half to three hours).
Did we care about the wait? Not at all. We had a glimmer of hope (which the doctor warned us to be prepared that the diagnosis could be the same).
My wife and I journeyed to the town over and stopped at a Pizzaria Uno. The waitress must have thought we were out there with our red complexions and glazed eyes. We barely ate, and sat there biding the time, and praying that there was hope, and that our companion would live.
A lot of the conversation between us focused on all the wonderful moments and memories with Precious. But with each story the pain and agony seemed to grow deeper and deeper. Just days earlier, we were looking forward to our Christmas family photo with our two daughters and Precious and Presley (and perhaps us). For the last seven years, Precious and Presley (the last six, he’s one year younger) have been included as signatures on our Christmas Cards. The worst part of death of your companion pet is not the dying in itself, but the thoughts of what will no longer be. The painful void.
Simple things, like at every meal, Precious begging for scraps from our table. I always shared a tidbit with her despite my wife’s insistent demands that I stop teaching our daughter bad habits. Mimicing her family my older daughter often would try to slip food to Precious from her high chair, saying “Here, Precious.”
We journeyed back to the hospital through dense traffic, which added to our own anxiety. Arrived and were brought into the consultation room for the update. Our prays, thoughts, hopes and desires were on edge, when the doctor informed us that the neurologist had deemed that the brain damage was most likely in two areas – her brain and brain stem, and that the prognosis was the same.
There is no bartering with the doctors on these fine points. Try as we did – to ask, rephrase questions, or find the loophole in their diagnosis, the fact was that the results were always the same. A guarded prognosis with limited time. We talked over the option of an MRI or CAT Scan, and all of the what ifs and surgeries, but when it came to the manner of resolving the problem, the results were always the same – chance of recovery being extremely poor even if cancer was found, and even if she survived the surgery. And the introduction of anesthesia which could also complicate matters.
The doctors at Tufts Foster Hospital were very kind and patient. They reminded us that it was O.K. to be upset and they even went as far as to say that they [the doctors] would be upset if we weren’t showing that we concerned and upset. They left us to console each other.
About 15 minutes later, we opted to take Precious home. Why put her through more psychological trauma? The doctor’s came out and showed us how to feed and provide water by syringe. We were to feed her with Hill’s Science Diet Prescription (canned food) by mixing 50 cc’s of water, four times a day – about 20 cc’s a feeding, plus regular cc’s of water through out the day to keep her hydrated. The best we could do is keep her comfortable and nurished. They also suggested that if she stopped eating or drinking than we would have to consider taking other steps. The thought of which felt like a knife through the heart.
We thanked the doctors for their help and empathy, and holding Precious in my lap, we quietly headed for home.
Thank you Doctor Amy Trow and your colleagues at Tufts for your empathy and support.
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