Buster = Bad News Bear (Day 2)

During the time when we were still considering getting a dog, I researched veterinarians in our area. I looked online and saw that there was one a couple miles from us and he had a couple of reviews that were pretty positive on yelp.com, so I figured that'd be a good place to take her for her worm problem.

The vet's website said they were available for walk-in appointments, so I decided to take Buster first thing in the morning -- my mom told me I would need to bring in a fresh fecal sample, so I brought her in as soon as she had done the nasty (Buster, not my mom!).

The vet was able to take us before his first scheduled appointment. We told him about her worms and he said that her sample had come back as positive for tapeworms. He gave her an injection that would kill the tapeworm. Buster is a complete wimp -- she yelped like nobody's business when he injected her! Poor Buster. :(

We also mentioned the lump on her elbow. He examined her body and found two more lumps in her mammary glands. The vet asked us how old Buster was and we told him the shelter thought she was about 2 years old. He shook his head as if he was really disturbed -- he said that for her to have lumps on her mammary glands would be like a 12-year-old girl having breast tumors.

The night before, we were panicking about her worms, but those were turning out to be the least of her problems. One of the other things we had noticed was that she drank what seemed like an abnormal amount of water. When we mentioned that to the vet, he said that she could have diabetes. At this point, we were dealing with a dog that not only had worms, but possibly cancer and diabetes. Other smaller things we had noticed were the vomiting the night before and excessive dandruff.

To test for diabetes, he recommended doing a blood test. As far as the lumps went, he recommended not bothering to do a biopsy, but rather we should jump right into surgery within a week. I asked him about the anesthesia he used -- one of the things I came across when doing research on Boxers was that they can have a bad reaction to the ACE anesthesia. The vet said dismissively that he has never in 20 years had a problem using ACE on Boxers, but that if I didn't want him to use it, he wouldn't. At that point, I was getting very unhappy with my choice of vet.

By the time we got out of the vet's office, I was crying and crying. I think I was already sort of emotional just from the stress of adopting a dog, in addition to a general lack of sleep, and then to get this sort of news about a dog we were already so attached to, I just couldn't handle it.

I called Wendy and told her what happened. She said that she didn't think I would want to, but I could probably return Buster to the rescue group. I thought back to the paperwork we had filled out the day before -- as we were filling it out, one of the conditions in our contract was that we wouldn't abandon Buster or giver her away. Sarah had said offhandedly that if for some reason we couldn't take care of her, like if she had cancer or something, we should return her to Boxers and Buddies. I remember thinking at the time that that seemed so unlikely.

After I talked to Wendy, I called my mom and told her what happened and that I think I wanted a second opinion. My mom offered to set up an appointment with her (really renowned) vet in San Ramon -- the Bishop Ranch Veterinary Center.

Richie's friend Mike had come over to watch the Stanford basketball game and he had some helpful advice. He and his girlfriend are really involved with the Rocket Dog rescue group in San Francisco. He suggested that I contact Boxers and Buddies and see if they would help with her treatment (I never asked them to help pay for Buster's treatments, but I appreciated the suggestion!). He also mentioned that I could probably return Buster if I wanted to, but I told him I wasn't interested in that. He also recommended a vet in Pacifica that is supposed to be good.

I ended up taking her to my mom's vet in San Ramon -- I knew they had done a great job on KayCee's hip replacement surgeries that she had when she was a puppy, so I knew they would be good. We saw Dr. Ikezawa, and she immediately made me feel so much better. She got down on the floor and talked to Buster enthusiastically. She suggested we aspirate the lumps to see whether or not they were suspicious, and then if they were, she would send them out for a biopsy. Then depending on those results she would recommend surgery. It was basically the same news as what the original vet had told us, but Dr. Ikezawa was totally upbeat about it -- even if the lumps were cancerous, she didn't act like it was a death sentence. In fact, she said she didn't see any reason why Buster couldn't be a happy, healthy dog.

We also mentioned her other assortment of problems -- the vomiting the night before, the dandruff, the excessive water drinking. I mentioned the first vet saying that she might have diabetes and Dr. Ikezawa made a face -- she said that there could be any number of things causing that and it wasn't necessarily diabetes. She said that we should have Buster's bloodwork faxed over to her when we got it back from the first vet. Dr. Ikezawa checked Buster's ears and found they were totally caked with wax and she had an infection (the other vet hadn't even looked in her ears!!!) But, overall, these other problems seemed pretty minor compared to all the lump stuff, so we didn't really focus on them too much.

After aspirating the cells, Dr. Ikezawa told us that the big lump on Buster's elbow did have some suspicious cells in it, so she had to send it out to the lab to get tested.

I got home late that night and fed Buster. I don't remember exactly, but I'm sure she probably barfed a little bit more that night. Over the next several days, she would barf about once a day.