How I Found My Vet And Why I Don’t Trust Her Anymore
The first concern of a family owning a pet when they relocate, is usually related to the most important member of the family. The Pet. When I moved back to Chennai in August 2015 after a five year stint at Singapore, I was entrusted with the responsibility of identifying a pet food supplier and veterinarian before we brought Maxx, our then five year old Golden Retriever, home to Chennai.
We were worried that Maxx, who had only been in two clean countries up until then ( He was born in Australia and lived his first five years at Singapore) will need some adjusting to the new environs of Chennai.
That should have been the last of our concerns. He loved Chennai!
The first of my jobs was to identify a dog food supplier. Maxx was used to grain free meat and biologically appropriate food and we were keen to continue providing the same for him in the new city. After a few phone calls I was able to identify a few suppliers who had the kind of food we were looking for our pet.
I asked the suppliers to refer me to vets practicing in the vicinity of the suburb that we would be living at and I promptly got a name. I didn’t stop there. Whenever I met a friend or acquaintance who owned a pet, I asked for a reference. A few fingers pointed to the same vet that the pet food supplier pointed me to.
I was convinced that I had to look no further.
Fast forward to a year later. It had been over 12months since Maxx had moved. He has had to visit the vet for hotspots, bacterial infections, vomiting bouts and vaccinations.
The vet had been friendly and all our visits had been pleasant. Even when Maxx fell sick when I was out of town, she had been accessible on Whatsapp for updates. What more, she was not too far from where we lived and she was really nice to Maxx. It was clear she loved animals.
So naturally I believed that I was in good hands.
Fast Forward to August 2017. Maxx has been falling ill frequently — More hotspots, skin itches, vomiting bouts and flu. First we attributed it to missing all of us since we have all been busy. Our daughter with whom Maxx spent every night joined University and left home, my husband relocated to another part of the world on work and visits every few months. I have been traveling a lot lately and obviously Maxx wasn’t taking all of that too well.
All through our visits, the vet has been supplying us with topical creams, antibacterial sprays, dewormers, flea and tick shampoos, annual vaccines (another revelation that they may not be needed at all) , biscuit treats and encouraging words for Maxx.
Fast Forward to January 2018. Maxx had another one of those nasty hotspots that appeared just beneath his right ear lobe. He must have accidentally scratched his ear when trying to reach the itchy spot just beneath the ear lobe and his earlobe swelled up. That warranted a visit to the vet who prescribed some broad spectrum antibiotics and assured us that the ‘fluid’ accumulated in the ear would go if we applied some gel that she would give us the following week, since she was out of stock. We completely trusted her to know what was best for Maxx and decided to wait it out.
Except that on day 5, the ear continued to fill and looked like a half filled water balloon
Two of our neighbours noticed that Maxx wasn’t looking normal or behaving like himself.
Said one, “ He’s never not wagged his tail or walked up to greet me when he sees me. But today I was surprised he didn’t do either!” The lady had owned a Labrador retriever in the past and lost the seven year old dog to some infection that had caused internal bleeding, about two years back. She incidentally had consulted with the same vet that I was seeing for Maxx.
Said the other, “ Are you still taking him to your usual vet? I think you should take a second opinion”, when she heard of the ear condition. This neighbour had lost her year and a half Dachshund who was also named Max just a year back. No points for guessing who the vet was.
That was enough to make me seek a second opinion — from a reputed vet who lived at the other end of town.
“Looks like he has a chronic yeast infection”
One look at Maxx’s nails, fur and skin and the vet made this startling observation. He glanced at the bulbous ear lobe and remarked that it was a hematoma and only a surgical intervention would correct it unless I wanted to wait it out and see if the fluid (blood) accumulated drained on its own. He educated me on the downsides of both the procedure and the waiting out and helped me make an informed decision.
All the time I was at the vet, watching him examine Maxx, I was berating myself for delaying the visit to this clinic by nearly two years!
What in the world was this veterinarian equipped with that the other vet didn’t possess to have missed a diagnosis?
X - Ray vision? A graduate degree from a better University? More experience?
I gave him permission for the required blood tests and x-rays to assess his overall health condition, now that I decided to move camp. No way I was going back to the first vet. That much was easy to decide.
When I came back home, I had this compulsive urge to confront Maxx’s first vet. I had to find out for myself if she had missed the diagnosis or were the symptoms very close to the topical bacterial infections that she had been treating Maxx for the past 24 months.
The yeast infection seemed like the root cause for all of Maxx’s skin problems. You don’t have to be a vet to know that. A basic google search tells you that.
How can she have not known that? She never once expressed that we may have to rule out the yeast as the trauma causing agent.
I badly want to give her the benefit of doubt. I await the final diagnosis from the new veterinarian.
First let me wait for Maxx’s post surgery recovery.
Blog Post #93 of #The100DayWritingProject
