A number of you have inquired about Scooter’s well-being. Thanks to those who cared. My vet is a good vet (a very overpriced vet, but I’ll take overpriced any day over cheap and not good). She’s been on antibiotics for a week to clear up any infection she might have had prior to said surgery.
Today, she went to the vet for a tooth extraction. At her age (18 or 19) that’s a risky proposition. However, she wouldn’t eat, so that was the plan. She was dropped off this morning promptly at 8am. Lots of hugging and such, because I was told up-front this was a very risky operation at her age.
Showed up at 4:30pm for cat pick up as instructed. Vet came right out to see me. First, Scooter’s doing well. She had her first bath in several years, ears cleaned, nails trimmed, all of which can’t be done to Scooter while she’s conscious because she tries to kill anyone who has the temerity to trespass on her person. She also had her teeth cleaned, her gums scraped, and all that good dental stuff we all hate.
But she didn’t have an extraction. After all that cleaning, the vet decided it wasn’t needed. There was so much tartar on the tooth, he thought that was the problem. His careful inspection prior to surgery saved her the operations (though the sedation is what’s risky, not the extraction). How many of your vets would second guess themselves?
On the bad news side, he believes that the first blood test was wrong and is sending a second one out. He thinks she’s got a thyroid problem because she has all the symptoms. So he’s testing T4 instead of T3 whatever that means. We’ll know Saturday. If so, she’s on medication for life. That’s good because it’ll cure her, but it’s bad because my body is already rough from one week of giving her antibiotic. It also means travelling anywhere will be out of the picture because no pet sitter can even catch her to give her medication. So it’s me at home for quite some time. I will discuss with the vet if there’s alternatives for this situation.
More as it becomes available.
(Addendum: Here’s a full link with all sorts of details about the drugs, side effects, additional treatments, and so on).