About two months ago my dog stopped eating his food. I didn’t think much of it for about a week, thinking he probably got into a dead fish or something. But then he started losing a lot of weight. So I ended up taking him to the vet. I live out in the country, and the vets out here are hicks. In fact, they spend the majority of their time chasing cows. The vet I ended up seeing had this gnarly-looking cigar poking out the side of his mouth as he looked my dog over.
He opened Woodrow’s mouth, took his temperature, and without a second thought said my dog had tonsillitis. He gave him a couple of shots and a 5-day supply of antibiotics and said he’d be fine by then. The next day I saw an improvement. But days later he began to decline again.
My fiancee offered to take Woodrow to the Texas A&M Small Animal Clinic in Bryan College Station. We called them on a Sunday to set the appointment up for Monday, but they urged us to come in right away. So we did. They looked him over and asked us if we’d be willing to pay to have some tests run. We agreed.
About an hour later they called us in and told us the radiograph showed something in his small intestine. They asked us if we’d be willing to pay to have an ultrasound done. Again we agreed. When they were done with the ultrasound, they told us Woodrow had something called an intussusception. It’s where the intestine folds on itself (imagine a telescope being pushed in). His intestines were swollen and about to rupture, because nothing could pass through the point of the intussusception.
Surgery was required. So far we had committed to paying about $500, but now we were talking a few thousand. We didn’t hesitate. I called my family and borrowed a thousand to use as a down payment. Surgery began around 10 o’clock and lasted until 4 in the morning…when the doctor called.
Turned out the intussusception was caused by a mass in Woodrow’s small intestine. The doctor was thinking cancer. I was floored. He said we would know the results of the biopsy in a few days. And talk about a rough few days. I was pretty upset to say the least. But Athena, my fiancee, was a trooper and got me through it. On Tuesday we went to visit Woodrow and asked if we could take him home. The doctor didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t. So while Athena was speaking to the receptionist about the payment (yes, Athena, because she works for Texas A&M and gets a 20-percent discount!) the doctor came out and said, “You wanna hear the good news?…It’s not cancer!” Whew! Talk about relieved! The “mass” in his stomach was…well…no one really knows. All we know is that it wasn’t cancer.
Woodrow's now back to his old self. To put weight back on him we have started feeding him satin balls, a recipe I read about on the internet.
As promised, the pics!
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Woodrow now with his summer cut!
I love his ears.