Sep 25
September 25, 2008 – 5:00 am
How it feels when you are suddenly plunged into hopelessness and then you are too desperate but helpless to put it back at normal. But to this your money came out to be of no use, not even the specialization and degree. You spent out like crazy just to know that its not going to be normal again.
This is about one of the most important incident in my life, fortunately I did succeed. I confess that I have witnessed myself as being dumb at 2 moments where I could have saved two lives. But NOT this time ! For past one month my family was trying to pull out our pet from the claws of death.
When did the not so fatal looking symptoms turned into this ? Tipu (my pet’s name after the one who passed away before) started showing a lack of endurance in his hind legs for even short walks, and then for some time he would wander around in every room sniffing every other thing like as if he was not able to see. We called the vet, he said that it was a case of worms in his stomach. So we treated him with the prescribed pills. It seemed like he was slowly recovering, but that was just a temporary effect. His appetite soon increased and drinking a lots of water after each walk became a normal thing.
But one day, Saturday, he started showing same blindness symptom and then started limping. Next thing I could see was a sudden collapse and muscular atrophy. I could feel the pain and perplexed state of his mind. Of course he is over 2 years old but still the pain was unbearable. We took him to nearest vet care. The vet said that it was a fatal incurable disease, Canine Distemper. The symptoms implied same, the virus was inside his nervous system, removing the protective sheath to render seizures for short time intervals. We were quite hopeless at that moment. I searched on net but couldn’t found a solutions, in fact it looked like we had no choice but to take care of him till he breathes his last breathe.
At home he got those seizures again at random intervals. He couldn’t walk or stand on his legs. But if this was not any better, he suffered from seizures too. For a moment it looked like everything was normal but then again seizure started, it was like as if someone was trying to stretch his legs beyond limits and then he was enduring muscular contractions at very high rate. My brother searched on net and forums outside his office (its fckuing sad that my net was down and his office has blocked every other site which is not related to their company), he came home with some neuro relaxants (Valium and Phenobarbitone). Somehow giving these pills helped him a bit, may be this helped to suppress the erratic nerve impulses to bearable limit. I could see a desire for life in his eyes.
The next thing was to take care of him 24×7. We appointed ourselves for different time intervals so that he could be taken care of and to keep hygiene. One thing that was most important at his moment was the presence of us for him. It could decide a thin line between his desire to live or leave the pain forever.
Few things that moved me most was that he tried to go outside for excretion. But how could he walk with those numb limbs. I was surprised that somehow he managed to reach near bathroom and urinated there. How come this be possible when someone is seriously ill to the condition that one can’t even walk. Another point is that he didn’t excrete, dunno but why ? Now just think about that all animals are in fact more intelligent than what we think. Of course we never ever trained him or told him to do all pee/poo outside. It was like as if coded into his DNA. Even I recall when he was just a months old, he used to move out of his sleeping place before pee/poo.
Something bad that vet did was to give him sleep inducing injections, so it took some 3 days for him to become totally conscious. In the mean time we massaged his body with warm clothes. Took care of supplements. Every possible trial to make him walk failed, even supporting him manually with two persons at a time didn’t make a difference. But by the end of 3rd day we manually took him outside and made him stand somehow. And this time he excreted, now that was some relief for him. We took him back and as per schedule I looked after him from 2AM to 6AM.
At around 3AM to my surprise he started walking (still limping) and made it to my room before collapsing down. So that was first sign of some hope considering it was just not a fake consolidation. Next day we went to the vet and he was pretty amazed to see that he could actually walk a little bit, how incompetent are these vets now. All they could do was to tell us that he won’t live and now taking their words back. Even at one time they made my dad to go to a medical store far away just to get a vial which was available with them, guess they get some profit margin for these things. Bloody disgusting.
So now by 5th day he was able to roam around in house. But the fact that the disease was incurable and how did he recover made us doubt. We went to another vet and the vet did a Canine Distemper serum test (funny thing is that the test kit was an import from Korea). It took some 3 hours to get it done. First he took out the blood and tried to clot it, but it didn’t. So he put it in a freeze. Later separated the serum and did the test. The result was NEGATIVE ! He said that it was not Canine Distemper but Canine Epilepsy. So was it curable ? Yes.
But what I found on net is that it depends upon the source of the epilepsy. If its dying lever or kidney then its not possible without transplant. But if its some stray tangled nerve fibre bundle then it can be reduced or cured to some extent. This vet was not much different than what I have generalized about other vets. First he tried to keep the syringe in the vein so that the next day same syringe can be used, how can my mom let it be that way ? She removed that syringe as soon as glucose bottle emptied. We told him that we were already giving him Valium and Phenobarbitone but again the incompetent vet prescribed same meds with a new addition of one capsule (GABA). And if it wasn’t enough he gave the sleeping injection too… Now the condition was like, we went to him with a fairly good walking pet and came back with not able to walk dull pet. Though one thing most relieving was that the test was negative (though success rate is 80% for that test).
This time one bad thing happened and that was the side effect of the capsule (GABA), Dysentery. Now thats something one could never wish to have if one can’t walk to a proper place to do it. Somehow we were more determined to save him now than be set back by any other thing. Did a lot of cleaning, as this time it wasn’t in his control too. One thing I must tell you is that it was the worst eek thing I had to deal with but still it was more than necessary. Lord showed some mercy and the dysentery was gone within one day :p This time we took one last chance and removed any other meds prescribed, returned back to Valium and Phenobarbitone. By the 5th day he was able to walk a little bit as he gained consciousness and strength.
Its been a months to closing and now he is perfectly normal :p But still on these two pills (Valium and Phenobarbitone). As removing them soon may cause withdrawal symptoms, that will impose a greater danger of acute epilepsy. Its better to remove it gradually over a month or so by reducing amount and no. of timings per day. Also remember that on every pet the dosage varies.
We are happy that we were able to save him. But I do feel bad for the incident I remained dumb and could’ve saved more lives.
Bad thing is that am left with no money to fill server cost, well am doing something to pay the due bill. I hope this post helps someone, its not the meds mainly but how much do you care for the one you care defines the line between life and death. If I were to believe on vets only then may be I could’ve lost him either by side effects of meds or by lack of care.
Internet is a medium through which you can get as much help as you want, its just about looking into right places. I thank to all those people and sources which helped me to deal with this matter.
- Author Name: T
- Author Webpage: http://visio159.com
- Listening to: Gafsa - Natacha Atlas
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