“Tim! Tim!” I awake wondering who is yelling my name from outside my window. Finally, as I become more coherent, I realize it is Stephanie. “Something is wrong with Dink! Come down here right now!” I get up, and stumble down the stairs in my bare feet to find our dog hunched in the drive way looking like a black cat on Halloween and shivering. Dink, our Weimaraner, had been undergoing radiation treatment for the past few weeks as a precautionary measure to prevent re-growth of a small tumor taken from his inner ear a few weeks before. Thinking it must be related to the treatment; I load him up in the car and drive him to the clinic which is located in Carlsbad about 45 minutes away.
Stephanie called ahead, so when we arrived they were waiting. “Assessment!” reverberates over the PA system as the nurses come out to take Dink and lead me to a small treatment room to anxiously await the doctor. In about fifteen minutes, which seemed like an hour, the doctor comes in and says, “We are not sure what’s wrong, but we think it is in his lower gastrointestinal track and he is dehydrated. We are going to put him on an IV and run some more tests. Your oncologist has been called and he is on his way here now.” Later, the oncologist comes in and explains, “It could be many things and we have go about ruling them out one at a time.”
Later, a nurse brings Dink in with an IV hooked up and he is still shivering. I get on the floor and coax him to lie down on a blanket and be still. A few hours later, the oncologist returns and says, “This is not my field, I am going to consult our Internist, she will do an ultrasound.” Following the ultrasound, the internist brings Dink back and she says, “I have ruled out a number of things but there are signs of fluid around the prostate gland and it is enlarged. We are going to do culture on the fluid to see if it contains bacteria.” Later, I was told, it did not, and there was still no reliable conclusion as to what may be wrong. It is 6:00 pm, Stephanie has arrived and we have to make some decisions as to what we are going to do. We decided Stephanie would go home and go to work in the morning and I would stay with Dink.
I slept on the floor next to him feeling him shiver all night despite frequent intrusions by nurses and doctor’s checking his IV meds and vitals. The next morning, I desperately wanted to see change so I was looking for anything. Maybe he is not shivering as much, I think to myself, but the internist comes to retrieve him and he had an accident on the way out and she quickly said, “Something isn’t right. You’ve been here all night, go get some breakfast and let me run some additional tests.” Fooling myself into thinking he was improving, I elected to run home take a shower and then come back. As I get out of the shower, the phone rings. Stephanie is on the other end saying, “Tim you need to call the doctor, they are talking about exploratory surgery.” I call the doctor. He explains that they did another ultrasound, and again, noticed fluid around the prostate and this time the culture showed bacteria. “We need to find the source and we are unable to locate it with ultra sound. He is declining and we need to open him up. I would prefer you talk with the surgeon who is standing by.” I say, “OK, I am leaving right now.”
As I am driving, my cell phone rings. The number of the clinic appears on the screen. I have to answer even though I am driving. The doctor says, “Dink is getting much worse and we need to operate, where are you now?” “How long before you are here?” “Soon,” I am on Camp Pendleton, maybe I’ll be there in 15 minutes.” I ask, “Do you need me to be there to start? “No,” the doctor replies. “We are prepping him now. Oh, there is one more thing, his blood pressure has been dropping and one of his clotting agents is deficient.” For the first time, I am starting to think, “Oh my God is he is going to die?”
I don’t remember the rest of the drive to the hospital. I arrive and one of the technicians leads me to a room and I wait for the doctor. Soon after the doctor comes in and repeats what he had told me on the phone, he explains what they are doing to raise Dink’s blood pressure and the deficient clotting agent. “We are injecting fluid into the circulation system to raise the BP, and it is working. We have extracted proteins from the blood of another dog and packing Dink’s blood.” I am starting to feel a little bit relieved, then I am “hit in the gut” to hear the doctor say,” You should go and see him. Let me make sure he is covered.” Now, I am scared again because it seems the doctor doesn’t think he is going to make it. I am led in and find him lying on his side on a stainless steel table with a blanket over him. The internist is holding a syringe full of a clear substance and slowly injecting it into a central line in Dink’s neck. “The pressure is rising,” she says.
The surgeon walks up and I am introduced, He is Indian and very young. My immediate thought, “Is he experienced enough to save my dog?” I am told there is disagreement on the source of the bacteria. The internist believes the source is in the prostate gland. The surgeon explains that he has never seen a dog “crash” this fast where there wasn’t a perforation in the intestine. They are going to perform the surgery to find out. He explains what he is going to do and then bows his head in respect to me. I turn towards Dink and raise his head in my hands. He looks up at me and tries to get up. The internist says, “That is a good sign.” Shortly thereafter, the anesthesiologist comes over and they wheel him away. I look at Dink and wonder will this be the last time I see him alive.
I am lead away to another room to wait. The oncologist tells me he will update me every few minutes on how Dink is doing. The surgeon comes by one last time, he says “His vitals have improved dramatically, he is very strong right now, and we are going to get started.” I tell the surgeon, “don’t give up on him, you don’t know this dog, but he has incredible drive. If you give him a chance, he will make it; he has a lot to live for.” He says, “OK” and bows again, and he is gone. In about ten minutes, the oncologist comes in and said he has never seen six people around the operating table before. They are looking at the small intestine now and haven’t found anything yet. About ten minutes later, the internist comes in and says nothing was found in the intestine, but that is a good thing because one more thing has been eliminated and they are moving to the prostate. Ten minutes later, the oncologist returns and says, “They found it.!” An abscess had ruptured in the prostate and there were bacteria in the fluid surrounding the structure. They had removed the abscess and filled it with fatty tissue, lavaged the abdomen and were closing him up.
Soon, the surgeon opens the door. He explains that the surgery went well, but the next 12 hours are important. He says “Dink will be placed in an oxygen kennel and we will provide him with as much support as possible, but it is really up to him now.” We are allowed to see him briefly about an hour after the surgery, his eyes were open and he was resting comfortably. He seemed to recognize us, but was too weak to even wag his tail. Stephanie, asks him to "Find Tim!" We can see his eys locate me and we know that at least for the moment he is there. The doctor explains if he makes it through the next 12 hours, the next be hurdle will be getting him to eat. If he will eat naturally, that is a better sign because they won't have create more stress for him by inserting a feeding tube. We leave him for the night and take a hotel room across the street from the clinic. Stephanie and I go to sleep talking about how we might be able to get Dink to eat, even though he may not want to.
The next day, the doctor suggests that we put off seeing him until later in the evening; they do not want him to get too excited. We leave a variety of Dink’s favorite foods before we go. We return later in the afternoon to see if the nurses had been able to get him to eat. The word came down and it was. "No!". Stephanie has fed him by hand many times before when he hasn’t been feeling well, she is confident she can get him to eat if she were to purée something and include peanut butter. Dink has always had a weakness for peanut butter. Over the years, to keep him from spitting out medications, Stephanie has disguised the tablet with peanut butter, Even though he probably suspected the trickery, he just couldn’t resist. We return with the concoction and Stephanie carefully placed a bit of the puree' on Dink’s lips to see if he would lick his lips. He didn’t, not to be deterred, she places some on the roof of his mouth, he seems to respond, soon after, he is licking the concoction off her fingers. Everyone standing around is relieved. The nurses say, “If we can get him to eat regularly during the next 24 hours; he should start to gain strength.”
He did continue to eat and gain strength. The next day after rounds, the doctor says, “emotional support will continue to be important.” They will remove him from the oxygen kennel and let him be with us in one of their many “comfort rooms”. For the next three days, we fed him and watched him sleep, but it was clear he was improving each day. Finally we were able to bring him home. We remain incredibly grateful to the doctors, nurses and techs at California Veterinary Specialists in Carlsbad, CA that not only saved Dink’s life and nurtured him through this, but for putting up with Stephanie and I during what was a very emotionally draining experience.
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