Bondi's saga

This is a story with a twist in it so be patient.

Bondi (pronounced "bawn-dye" ) is our 13 year old miniature aussie.



This year he got a cancer and needed surgery. It took him 4 to 6 weeks to get normal again after the surgery. Then suddenly he developed a bladder problem. I took him to the place that handled the surgery and they said it was a UTI. A week later I phoned them and said I don't think this is a UTI...the meds are doing nothing. So the surgery place said, take him to your normal vet. The vet then came out with bad news. They said he had a new tumor in his bladder and it was blocking him. The tumor was inoperable and incurable. Under those conditions he would have at best 2 weeks and that I should not let it go that long. With a blocked bladder he was set for real suffering to come, and soon.

I had to be the stoic one in the family so I set it up to put him down on a Monday.

Then the surgery place called and said, because we missed the tumor we offer you a free ultrasound so that we can get better at seeing this kind of thing. I could have declined that I suppose but I would never do that, so I said sure. I just figured, oh well at least this might help another dog some day if they do this. I took him in on the Saturday before his fateful Monday.

When I came to pick him up, it turns out, what the surgeons really wanted was to get a look at him with a dedicated ultrasounder (most regular vets do not have that expertise). The ultrasounder told me, he does have a tumor, it is inoperable and incurable, but he is not blocked and in no danger of being blocked. There was no immediate threat. He told me, there's a med that works fine to control tumors like that. It can't cure the tumor but it can contain it. He added that the whole thing about saying they just wanted to improve their own diagnostic technique was a ploy. The surgeons never believed he was that badly off, so they offered a free ultrasound to bring me in...they just couldn't tell me till they looked at him that they really doubted the more dire diagnosis.

Basically, the vet had misdiagnosed him and the surgery place, a completely different business in a different part of town, stepped in to the rescue. Out of the blue. The vet had sent over the paperwork and they saw the appointment to be put down and just contacted me to get me in there so they could check.

Now it has been about 10-12 weeks since I cancelled the appointment to put him down. He has lost weight, he takes meds every day (no side effects), the tumor persists but is being managed, but beyond that he is his happy affectionate sweet self and does not know he is sick. I don't know how much time he has but it was quite something to make an appointment to put him down and then find out that that wasn't necessary.

Yay Bondi.











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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2018 11:17AM by zn.