Another vet visit

We ended up back at the emergency vet last night for 3 hours. I think dh may have overreacted a bit, but I tend to underreact, so we decided to take him in, mainly because he had been having diarrhea all day, on top of his nose still bleeding a little and we can't get him into that specialist until next Thursday. His appetite is good, but no energy. So, $821 later we really don't know much. We had her do a chest xray and also she did an ultrasound of his stomach. When she was feeling his stomach she said she was suspecting maybe a mass in his stomach. Nothing showed up. There were no masses or fluid. The only thing she can see is that his lungs look "opaque". She showed us what an image of a 10 year old dogs "normal" lungs look like and there are definite outline/margins of the lung. His looks blurry. Honestly, after I got home I was wondering....he was overexcited being there and just panting like crazy the whole time. So obviously his lungs were just moving fast with all the panting....would that make taking an image harder...wouldn't it end up looking a little "blurry" like it did? I'm sure I'm wrong, but she really had no answer as to why his lungs would look like that, other than maybe metastatic cancer. Then she said she's also wondering if it's pancreatitis from his stomach images, so they also redid his blood work (she said the vet next week can use it, too) and 2 weeks ago everything was good except some liver enzymes were just a bit elevated. Now they are normal. There was no pancreatitis.

She gave us some probiotic stuff to help with the diarrhea. It's a paste to give 3x a day for 2 days and also a pill once a day. Also an antibiotic for a week and some other herbal type pills that is supposed to help coagulate his blood to stop/slow the nose bleeding. She seemed pretty convinced he probably has a tumor in his nasal passage. When we first got there the girl at the desk told us it would probably be about an hour wait, as they had patients in both their rooms, so we sat down to wait. We only had to wait 10 minutes and one of the rooms got done, but we were still there 3 hours. He had diarrhea twice while there. DH took him outside once and then when they took him back for the imaging he had some.

We got home at midnight, so I gave him the first dose of the probiotic paste and the pill. I wasn't starting the other pills until morning, as they are every 12 hours and would be easier to do 8am and 8pm (they suggested waiting until morning to start). At 7:15 this morning the vet calls me. She was getting his records sent to our regular vet and the specialist and realized that she put the wrong instructions on the label for the antibiotic. It said 2 pills, but it was supposed to be 1 pill. She was very apologetic and I said that's ok, I probably would have figured it out this morning when I re-read the instructions and realized there was only half that amount of pills compared to the instructions and called to check on it. She also said due to his weight, (90 pounds) it would be ok to increase the dose of the paste stuff from 5mg to 8mg. So, I'll end up giving him like 5 doses instead of 6 total.

He's not really liking the paste. It's in like a big syringe thing and at midnight I squirted it (tried) into his mouth. This morning I squirted it into a little bowl hoping maybe he'd lick it out. Nope. So, then I took some small pieces of hot dog and put it on those and he ate it and then got all his other pills down with the cheese. Hopefully the diarrhea will start improving today. He actually seems to have more blood out his nose today...it's been very little before today.

Then this morning I call my payroll benefits help line to find out why I haven't gotten an insurance card for dh, from adding him onto my work insurance plan, to start 6/1. I got my new card last week. They said cards come from the insurance company so I would need to contact them. The health insurance company then told me they don't show dh on my plan...so call back our payroll benefits advisor who puts me on hold for 20 minutes. First she tried to tell me "well it takes 7-10 days for them to add someone" I said he was added like 5 or 6 weeks ago, during open enrollment. Then comes back to tell me it's now with their "benefits specialist" and she created a case and they are resubmitting dh's info the the health insurance company, but the info won't get to them until Monday and then probably another 48 hours after that before he's set up. I said he has a dr. appt next Tuesday, I need his ID# so they can bill for it. I was then told to pay for it out of pocket and submit for reimbursement. Really??....Good grief.

Last night when I talked to mom to make sure she got her pills taken, she was pretty confused. She really wasn't making a lot of sense. Most of it is because she can't think of the words she wants to use to tell me something, but finally she said "you can check my accounts right?" I think she was trying to tell/ask something about what her apartment place charges and she maybe thought they were charging her extra? I just said they aren't charging any extras. Everything is included in your monthly rent. Then she said something about sitting in "some room" to eat and then said "well at least it's people I know from (old work place from 30 years ago) and have them to visit with".....She hasn't worked for like 30 years now. She and her old bf used to go to these "retirees lunches" about once a month or so. Maybe she was thinking that's where she was? I didn't correct her (obviously no one from where she and my step dad (and then her bf) retired from lives over here!) and just said "oh that's nice you can visit with them". But she was up and ready to go down for breakfast on her own again this morning, so that is good.