Hannah the Dog: Health Update Update

Let's return to the regularly scheduled Hannah the Dog health update, an ongoing feature on this here weblog in which I wail and gnash my teeth because my poor dog can never catch a break.

Hannah and I went to her general veterinarian yesterday for her annual exam - get her a good looking over, get her vaccinated, and do *shudder* parasite checks.

1) "This is the healthiest sick dog I've ever seen." Yes, my friends, Hannah looks good. Her coat is good, her weight is good, her teeth are okay, and she was so very sweet to all the techs.  If you didn't look at her file or the giant gallon size bag of medicines I brought along with me, you might be fooled into thinking she's just fine.

2) My regular vet, let's call her Dr. Lauren because that's her name, was on the phone with the fancy neurologist earlier this week talking about Hannah's case. It turns out that the neurologist had sent Hannah's file off to the fancy vet school in our state and everyone agreed that the current course of treatment is good. (Just as a reminder: Hannah has an infection in her spine and it's challenging to biopsy to culture it to figure out what exactly it is, so she's on massive doses of both antibiotics and antifungals.)

Meanwhile, we sent some blood samples off to the lab to check her liver because some dogs struggle with the antifungal. After we get back those lab results (also a regular parasite and heartworm check), I'll have to call the neurologist to schedule some new x-rays for Hannah so we can see if there's been any movement on the infection and discuss if we maintain the current medicines or make any changes.

3) At one point, they took Hannah out of the exam room to give her vaccinations and apparently she was quite cooperative, but never took her eyes off the door that she knew I was behind. She was praised mightily for how smart she was. I sort of think it really says something about how co-dependent we are, but no one brought that up.

And that's that. Last night, a local veterinarian who has won some Moth competitions, was speaking at our local community center's lecture series. I dragged myself out to see him in the pouring rain, mostly out of obligation because I'm on the board of directors for this community center, and the first story he told was about a dog dying. I nearly walked out. 

The worst part about having pets is the overwhelming responsibility for the quality of their lives. I listened to this vet talk about his patients (the non-humans) and clients (the humans) and I know that every dog, cat, cow, and gerbil he sees are just patients to him, but to their people, they are so much more. I'm grateful that Hannah's vets worry about her, consult about her, and I know they're doing the best they can and that we're doing the best we can, but I couldn't help but wonder as I left that talk if someday Hannah was just going to be another anecdote in some veterinarian's stories someday.