$370 Bald Spot

It started on Mother’s day…she sat down as you petted her across her back. Then it moved on to not jumping on and off the bed like the crazy dog she is. I noticed the petting thing on Sunday…Clint mentioned it to me on Wednesday when I got home from work – we were supposed to be headed to a baseball game. So I called the vet – asking if it were possible that she might have a pulled muscle or should I bring her in. The vet said bring her in now! With urgency…so I freaked out. This is my baby and I had noticed her issues on Sunday and ignored them for 3 whole days and it was bad enough a description that the vet said it couldn’t wait…what kind of crappy dog mom am I?

So I tell Clint to go to the game with Scott when he arrives and I will follow when I get back from the vet. And the vet is the new vet (of a practice of 5, 3 steady, 1 fairly new, and this would be the newest). I’ve never met her, she seems likable enough. She explained her reasoning for asking us to come in immediately is that a lot of people can’t distinguish back pain from abdomen pain in dogs. (WHEW, I knew it was back pain, she’s still pooping and peeing like a champ) Well, she tells me the various things it could be, from mild to worst and we decide to take the route of some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory pills and pain pills for a week and cage rest and we’ll see what happens. I walk out $80 poorer, thinking I once again over reacted to what will be a pulled muscle.

A week later, I am about out of meds, and Scarlett is no better than she was before. So I call the vet and ask if I should continue the pills and if so that I need a refill, or should I bring her in for X-rays or something. The vet says X-rays – and she estimates it will cost around $220-$230 depending on how much it takes to sedate Scarlett.

So the next morning I haul Scarlett in for the X-rays and sit patiently by the phone waiting to hear the news that my dog has irreparable spinal damage and they are going to put her down. I get the call…FINALLY at about 3pm. She shows no issues on her X-rays, although they are going to hold them back for the radiologist to look at when they come in. For now they will increase her dosage on the anti-inflammatory and switch to caplets for the pain pill since Scarlett apparently can tell the difference between a treat and a med even if it’s supposed to be tasty. She is released to me that afternoon for $260 – pills and X-rays.

By now, I’m seriously in tears when I look at her. I can tell she’s in pain, I’m doing my best to do everything I can. For the first time EVER I have given her all the pills at all the right times for recovery.

The next morning, I fight her to get her out of the bed so she can take care of her business before I leave for work. She bites my face – kind of a warning bite, not a chomp down I’m going to kill you bite, but “see how pointy my teeth are?” lunging at me kind of bite – where she happened to ram her teeth into my face. So I sit on the ottoman and start to cry, because I’m at my wit’s end and not only can I not figure out how to fix my dog, I have now actually hurt her. And true to her mother, she feels guilt when she makes me cry and she tried to comfort me, and gave me kisses. I got her off the bed and took her outside. She’s doing her business when I notice a spot. A spot on her back where she’s lost some hair….a spot exactly where when you touch her she sits. I don’t know what the spot is, is it an insect bite? Is it a wound from a tree branch or something? I don’t know. I spray it with Benedryl spray – in case it’s an insect bite – maybe it itches. And I kennel her and head to work. I called Clint on my way and told him about the spot and he said to call the vet again.

I called the vet and made an appointment for that afternoon, I have an eye appointment an hour away that evening, but I figure I need to do this for her and if it runs over, I can always call Clint’s cousin to come take over for me at the vet’s office. We got Dr. Wall, she examines Scarlett and says she thinks there’s something in there, like a splinter or something. She asks if she can shave the area. And I say “Whatever you have to do to fix my dog.” Which I think is the sentence that allowed her not to come back and tell me what was going to happen, as I waited for what felt like an eternity.

She came back with Scarlett looking a little happier, with a little slit cut in her back where the bump was, a little blood and a little bald spot. She had a grass awn. A grass awn had caused all of this discomfort. She was put on antibiotics, in addition to her pain pills and anti-inflammatory pills. $30…the cheapest of all 3 sessions, and she’s fixed! Or she will be, cause she’s still got some healing and recovering to do. They had put some topical anesthetic on her back and cut the thing out.

A grass awn...mostly likely picked up by rolling around on her back in the grass. I looked it up on the internet and can only say I feel a little lucky and a little weirded out, because – she by all accounts shouldn’t have had one. The typically prone groups are long haired outdoor dogs who have access to fields with high grass, and even those dogs, normally get them in their foot webbing or they breathe them into their respiratory system. Although there is one sad story of a dog that seems to have had it so badly that they nearly cut him in half – or at least that what the pictures look like. It could have been worse, the dogs that breathe them in have them get in their lungs and migrate through their body. They cause abscesses along the way…it’s really a very terrifying picture of what could have been.

Anyway – I continued to give her the meds with amazing consistency (which is not like me at all with animal meds, or my own personal meds for that matter). She took her last antibiotic this morning and I’m sure she’ll be relieved to find out I have nothing to shove down her throat this evening. She has seemingly completely recovered, and although I’ll miss that while she was not feeling well, she slept through the night without asking to go out…I have to admit when she woke me up in the middle of the night a few nights ago to go out, I breathed a giant sigh of relief. My baby is feeling better!

In the midst of this, Clint said something about “if” they could fix her (before we knew what it even was). And I responded “Oh, they WILL fix her.” Scarlett is my child and I will not put her down without a fight. People have been telling me that when the baby comes I will love Scarlett less. I remember reading on another website about a woman who said she didn't believe them, when they told her she would love her dog less when her child came. She said they were right, and she was right – she didn’t love her dog less, but she loved her child differently. So I guess we’ll see. But for now – all I can say is how much I love Scarlett and her $370 bald spot.