Emergency
Hey, firstly, I want to say that the doctor that treated us was kind and compassionate.
Now the positive being out of the way, I was very unhappy with the treatment here, and think the quality of care is sub-par. We got referred to AWAKE from Ahlbergs Veterinärpraktik (who are AMAZING, btw.). My dog had shown signs of a neurological episode, struggling to move - clearly an emergency
They left my wife waiting with Mia, and the first nurse that came in asked "Oh, so you're in because she lost 1kg?". Great start
They suggested to keep my dog there. Fine. The next morning she was significantly worse. The doctor very heavily implied that we would need to euthanize her.
After talking to her (and doing a ton of my own research; I do research for a living, so I am somewhat adept at it) we narrowed the differential diagnosis to cancer, a stroke, meningitis, encephalopathy, and a few others. She wanted to do more tests. But the dramatic part: ALL of these diseases react to steroids. But despite that, she was not planning to give any. I HAD TO BRING IT UP. After that, Mia got steroids.
When I came in an hour after talking to the doctor, my dog was barely functioning. She had to be carried in, essentially. But lo and behold, after a few hours of steroids in her system, she could walk again, peed under her own power. Now it's 1 day later, and the proprioception in her foot is starting to work again, she's walking quite quickly, jumped herself on the couch.
Beyond that, she clearly did NOT know greyhound specifics:
- She indicated Mia had very elevated red blood cells (70%), while that is in the normal range for greyhounds. It went down the day I came to 55-60%.
- She very clearly indicated this must be cancer then, while the risk for ischemic stroke in greyhounds is 6.6x that of the normal dog population (let's see what it is, but seems like a relevant data point to mention)
- Mentioned she had a history of kidney problems (although her creatinine has been monitored for years and has been stable, on the upper end of greyhound normal range)
Don't get me wrong - I know my dog is quite sick, and we probably have limited time left together. But if it was up to the AWAKE team, Mia would be dead now, euthanized in a strange place with people who didn't treat her the right way.
At the very least I'll be taking her to a neurologist elsewhere.
