Since the beginning of December, my little dog, Gizmo has been having random "tee-tee" accidents in the house. I took her to the vet in late January only to be told it could be one of several things. 1) bladder infection...UTI 2) Transitional Cell Carcinoma (TCC)...cancer 3) Bladder Stones 4) Inflamation of the bladder.
We treated her for 1 month with antibiotics for the most common and probable...UTI. She did seem to feel better and the accidents stopped. If it was TCC the antibiotics would not have any effect and the accidents would become more frequent, however, this cancer is rare but still possible.
Well, this past week, she had 2 accidents within 24 hours. And of course, I lost it in the form of worrying and tears fearing the worst, TCC. This form of cancer in dogs is very aggressive and once diagnosed, typically they have 3 to 6 months to live with no successful treatment or cure.
Today, I took her back to the vet for more testing which included x-rays, ultrasounds, urine cultures, etc. When talking to her vet, he seemed less hopeful since the antibiotics did not work and wanted to go ahead and rule out TCC if that was not the problem. However, the problem with testing for TCC, the specific testing is not definite and can give false positives and false negatives leading to more tests and of course more expensive vet bills. Instead, he tested her for Bladder Stones in which he found 3 in her bladder. So the good news...it's not TCC. The bad news, she does have Bladder stones which have to be treated either through diet or surgery depending on the type of stone. The best news would be that the type she has can be treated through a special diet, however, I will take having surgery over only 3 months to live.
I know to some, dogs are just pets, but to me they are another member of the family. Loosing a pet is devastating to me and causes such emotional sadness. I am so thankful that Gizzie doesn't have cancer and we have several more years of her as our little blessing of a pet.
"It's difficult to understand why some people don't realize that pets are gifts to mankind.”~Linda Blair
Until next time, Ruff! Ruff!, HB
2 comments:
I'm sorry Gizzie has been sick. Hopefully, she will feel better soon. Our pets are our babies, too.
Bo's mom had several of those bladder stones...she was same breed as Gizzie and the stones were huge. I hope she'll have some relief soon.
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