Turtle

So not ready for this one

Turtle is still not doing well, at least not as well as she needs to be doing.  Bullet point catch up on what has happened:

• Monday, June 13th - D and I return from Vegas and immediately take Turtle to the vet. RHG let us know that she'd woken up with a swollen eye that morning, but she and Jay hadn't noticed anything different in the previous days. 
• The vet examines Turtle, determines she doesn't have glaucoma or a scratch on her eye ball, gives us steroid drops and tells us to come back if the eye isn't back to normal in a week.
• June 14 - June 18 - Turtle seems to be doing slightly better with her eye.  The swelling as reduced, but it was a slow change.  She eats and plays normally. 
• Sunday, June 19 - I immediately recoil upon seeing Turtle's eye in the morning.  After waiting for D to wake up (Father's Day), I take Turtle to the emergency vet.  He rechecks her eye and there's no scratch.  He says to continue with the drops, try an antibiotics, and prescribed some pain pills.  I have to catch my flight that night, so I hand off instructions to D.  
• Thursday, June 22 - D takes Turtle to our regular vet since her eye is not getting better and she's acting lethargic. They are unable to figure out what's wrong after running various tests.  She's now progressed to the point where she can't even open her mouth without pain, so she's not eating or drinking.  
• Friday, June 23 - D brings Turtle back to the vet so they can sedate her and get her mouth open.  They run more tests and still have no idea what's wrong.  They give him another round of antibiotics and more pain pills. Vet bill at this point is $1200. 
• She continues to not eat, but will drink, perks up a bit.  D is able to get her to take pain pills, but the antibiotics (which taste horrible) are a no go no matter what he tries.  On Saturday afternoon, he's able to get her to take the antibiotics crushed with honey. 

This leads us to where we are now.  She's bleeding from her nose.  Not constantly, but enough that I'm finding large drops of blood on the floor.  And if I wipe her nose with a tissue, it comes away bloody. She will not eat more than a very small bite of anything.  I just cooked up hamburger and put it on the floor and she won't touch it.  Won't eat cheese, won't eat anything.  She won't drink from her regular water bowl, but will drink from the toilet bowl.

So where does that leave us?  D and I agree that continuing to try to find out the problem is a waste of money. The vets have no clue.  Furthermore, I already know that if it is a tumor or some other terminal thing, I'm not going to treat it.  She's 9yo and I don't want her to spend her final years in pain.  If it's a foreign object that got stuck up her nose, they didn't see it in the small x-rays they ran.  It could still be an object, but that doesn't mean they'll be able to get it out for a reasonable amount of money.  This discussion sounds like it's a financial decision, however, it's not really.  It's more that I don't believe in prolonging my pet's life just because *I* am not ready for this to happen yet.  The cost does come into play because of course I'd be willing to run tests galore if they didn't cost so much money.  But the end result of those tests would probably be the same regardless of money: the choice to not treat a serious aliment given her age.

The plan as of now: I've called the vet and had him call a pharmacy to mix up the antibiotics into a liquid form that is tastier and that I can squirt into the side of her mouth (hopefully).  Because of the type of antibiotic she needs (in theory, since they don't know what is specifically wrong), they can't give it to her via a shot.  I'm going to try these antibiotics via the liquid syringe for 3-4 days.  If she's still not eating (thankfully she's got the reserves to go for a while without food), then I'll call the vet to discuss if doing an x-ray of her snout might be worthwhile to see if it's a foreign object. 

I'm losing hope that there's going to be an ending other than her not being here next week. It's so difficult to type that given she is seemingly so happy right now.  She's happy to go on her walks, wags her tail, is happy to see us, doesn't SEEM in pain at all.  However, if she won't eat any food, I don't see what else we can do (short of hooking her up to an IV to get nutrients into her, which I would do ONCE, but certainly not as a solution). 

This sucks.  I was having such a great time spending time with just her.  She's so wonderful to take on walks and such a perfect dog in all ways except her shedding.  She was always overshadowed by Eddie's larger-than-life personality.  Now I'm starting to think I'm never going to have the 1:1 time with her that I always wanted.  Fuck.