Posted by DW on October 13, 2009, 1:10 am, in reply to "Re: Remove them right away"
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Animals won't generally show they are sick until they are very, very sick. I've seen this many times and sometimes I catch it in time and sometimes I don't. Olivia was one I knew was ailing but with higher utility bills in the winter I put it off for 'just a bit longer'. She died and maybe she would not have if I had jumped on the more subtle signals she was sending before her symptoms got really obvious.
I remember Ian and me fighting bitterly about Ubu. Ian yelled at me that "I will not let you make a hypochondriac out of this dog." So it was fitting the dog died in front of him when he finally conceded he needed to go back to the vet. ...but I should have done something sooner even though we probably would not have been able to save Ubu considering what killed him. So it's been a year with Olivia and 7 years with Ubu. I still feel bad. I don't like that.
Now I do like Bekah. I just take them in and pay for most of the vet bills, although sometimes Ian will take on a few if the situation fits into his personal view of things.
So, knowing what you know about her cancer diagnosis ... If you choose to not pursue treatment for Missy, she will probably feel okay for a while and then by the time she does not, it will be too late. You have to decide what you will do and know that you are potentially shortening her life if you do not remove those tumors. The annoying thing is that you may not be saving it by having them removed either. It will probably help to remove the tumors. It most certainly will make things worse if you do not. Either way you will have to live with the results.
That's your deal to figure out. Mostly you have to make sure she isn't suffering now or in the future. If you make the choice to do nothing, I understand, but it's not one I would make now and it's never been one I've liked having to make. Even with Nell, I could not afford the surgery to deal with her tumors but at least I got a second opinion before I euthanized her and that was about $300 or the cost of a simple surgery like tumor removal. I doubt I would have come up with the $1700 to $3400 it would have taken for surgery for her. I didn't even have a job at the time, but maybe I would have if I had been told the truth about her chances with surgery. The dumb vet I had said surgery wouldn't really help, but I read later it probably would have.
What I'm saying is that the decision you make now will hang with you for a long time. Less money sounds good but not if it haunts you, but you have to decide for yourself what your finances really are able to handle.
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