![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I love my job. But sometimes I just get so incredibly frustrated when, thanks to the neglect or unconcern of the owners, there's nothing I can do to help the animal.
A couple of days ago, a dog came in that, according to his owners, just wasn't doing right. Of course, he'd never been to a vet before. Never neutered, never vaccinated, never had a checkup, nothing. Now he was losing weight, mopey, and not eating. When I examined him, he was in pretty poor shape - no muscle mass at all, bright yellow with liver disease, blood in his abdomen, bleeding from his nose... what could do this? Cancer? Rat poison?
Of course, he was a sweet dog. Still trying to wag his tail, still licking my hand even after I put his IV in. Somehow, it's always the sweet ones that wind up horribly ill. And after several hundred dollars of diagnostics, we had our answer.
Heartworm. Goddamn preventable heartworm. 100 % utterly and totally avoidable.
If only his owners had brought him in for his annual checkups, and had given him the preventives, this dog would still be bouncing happily around his yard. Instead, he's probably going to die. The blood vessels from his heart to his lungs are clogged full of worms, so his heart can't pump. He's in congestive heart failure, with secondary liver failure. And of course he's too debilitated to survive the treatment that would kill the worms, so right now there's not much that can be done other than try to keep him alive long enough to recover a little.
This is so amazingly, incredibly unfair. This dog shouldn't be suffering like this - doesn't have to be suffering like this. And the ironic thing is that now, whether he survives or not, the cost of his treatment is going to be far, far more than the cost of the annual checkups and prevention would have been. So they didn't even save any money.
I wish there was a way to make people understand that preventive medicine really is important, that we're not just trying to steal their money. But every day I hear people tell me that it's all a scam, that there's no such thing as heartworm or parvo, that because it hasn't happened to them yet it never can. I wish I could take a picture of this dog and show it to them. I wish they could see him, too weak to stand, but still so full of trust and love for the people who let him down and let this happen to him. I wish they could feel what I feel - the painful, fist-clenching frustration and sorrow when I can't fix the problem, make him better.
I really do need to get my web page up. That'll be my project for the weekend. But... even if people read it, I know some of them still won't be convinced. I know I can't save everyone, but I still want to, and I still hurt when I can't.
A couple of days ago, a dog came in that, according to his owners, just wasn't doing right. Of course, he'd never been to a vet before. Never neutered, never vaccinated, never had a checkup, nothing. Now he was losing weight, mopey, and not eating. When I examined him, he was in pretty poor shape - no muscle mass at all, bright yellow with liver disease, blood in his abdomen, bleeding from his nose... what could do this? Cancer? Rat poison?
Of course, he was a sweet dog. Still trying to wag his tail, still licking my hand even after I put his IV in. Somehow, it's always the sweet ones that wind up horribly ill. And after several hundred dollars of diagnostics, we had our answer.
Heartworm. Goddamn preventable heartworm. 100 % utterly and totally avoidable.
If only his owners had brought him in for his annual checkups, and had given him the preventives, this dog would still be bouncing happily around his yard. Instead, he's probably going to die. The blood vessels from his heart to his lungs are clogged full of worms, so his heart can't pump. He's in congestive heart failure, with secondary liver failure. And of course he's too debilitated to survive the treatment that would kill the worms, so right now there's not much that can be done other than try to keep him alive long enough to recover a little.
This is so amazingly, incredibly unfair. This dog shouldn't be suffering like this - doesn't have to be suffering like this. And the ironic thing is that now, whether he survives or not, the cost of his treatment is going to be far, far more than the cost of the annual checkups and prevention would have been. So they didn't even save any money.
I wish there was a way to make people understand that preventive medicine really is important, that we're not just trying to steal their money. But every day I hear people tell me that it's all a scam, that there's no such thing as heartworm or parvo, that because it hasn't happened to them yet it never can. I wish I could take a picture of this dog and show it to them. I wish they could see him, too weak to stand, but still so full of trust and love for the people who let him down and let this happen to him. I wish they could feel what I feel - the painful, fist-clenching frustration and sorrow when I can't fix the problem, make him better.
I really do need to get my web page up. That'll be my project for the weekend. But... even if people read it, I know some of them still won't be convinced. I know I can't save everyone, but I still want to, and I still hurt when I can't.
