go with your gut feeling, if you are worried, keep looking until you find someone who will do it!
if you don't want to read all this, just skip to the last paragraph, there's an important message there!
about a year ago i went to my vet and said, i want a full body x-ray and ultra-sound done of ivory, because i love her and if anything ever happened my world would just stop. he said i was being paranoid and brushed me off, which i was pretty annoyed about. she also had a lump on her back left leg which had been tested by 3 different vets on numerous occasions, they all said they could only get blood out of it so it was of no concern.
unhappy with that, i called up and had her booked in immediately at the university of queensland vet hospital, no questions asked, they did what i asked. full body x-ray and ultra-sounds. they found a small lump in her spleen, said the one on her leg was sus but to keep a close eye on it.
yesterday she went back for her 6 month checkup. sitting at my desk this afternoon as the vet called with the results, i think the whole office stopped working when they saw me burst into tears.
the lump in her spleen has grown by .5cm all over. there were 6 other lumps i had them test too. one is a tumor in her left armpit. the one on her leg is a blood vessel tumor. one is nothing much at all, just looks strange. the 3 others are just fatty deposits.
so now she goes in next week for surgery. to have the first 3 lumps removed. the leg one is quite involved, they will need to remove a large chunk of leg tissue to make sure they get all of it. they believe it is connected to the lump in her spleen. they will test that one via a needle, which also means if it bleeds afterwards from where the needle went in, they will need to do emergency surgery to remove her spleen completely. they will bandage up her leg wound afterwards, but depending on how it heals (as there will not be enough skin leftover to pull it back together for stitching) they may need to go back and do a skin graph over it.
and then they will do a final full body x-ray and ultra-sound to check nothing has spread. the blood vessel tumor on her leg has a high percentage of spreading through the blood. they will do a blood test and check all her organs and levels. and then we begin the recovery process, which she said i have to prepare myself for, that it might be huge.
the point of all of this? if you are concerned like i was, and want to get x-rays etc done to be sure nothing is wrong, don't let your vet palm you off by saying you are being paranoid for no reason. go with your gut feeling. they are amazing creatures and deserve the same high level of health care we give ourselves.
about a year ago i went to my vet and said, i want a full body x-ray and ultra-sound done of ivory, because i love her and if anything ever happened my world would just stop. he said i was being paranoid and brushed me off, which i was pretty annoyed about. she also had a lump on her back left leg which had been tested by 3 different vets on numerous occasions, they all said they could only get blood out of it so it was of no concern.
unhappy with that, i called up and had her booked in immediately at the university of queensland vet hospital, no questions asked, they did what i asked. full body x-ray and ultra-sounds. they found a small lump in her spleen, said the one on her leg was sus but to keep a close eye on it.
yesterday she went back for her 6 month checkup. sitting at my desk this afternoon as the vet called with the results, i think the whole office stopped working when they saw me burst into tears.
the lump in her spleen has grown by .5cm all over. there were 6 other lumps i had them test too. one is a tumor in her left armpit. the one on her leg is a blood vessel tumor. one is nothing much at all, just looks strange. the 3 others are just fatty deposits.
so now she goes in next week for surgery. to have the first 3 lumps removed. the leg one is quite involved, they will need to remove a large chunk of leg tissue to make sure they get all of it. they believe it is connected to the lump in her spleen. they will test that one via a needle, which also means if it bleeds afterwards from where the needle went in, they will need to do emergency surgery to remove her spleen completely. they will bandage up her leg wound afterwards, but depending on how it heals (as there will not be enough skin leftover to pull it back together for stitching) they may need to go back and do a skin graph over it.
and then they will do a final full body x-ray and ultra-sound to check nothing has spread. the blood vessel tumor on her leg has a high percentage of spreading through the blood. they will do a blood test and check all her organs and levels. and then we begin the recovery process, which she said i have to prepare myself for, that it might be huge.
the point of all of this? if you are concerned like i was, and want to get x-rays etc done to be sure nothing is wrong, don't let your vet palm you off by saying you are being paranoid for no reason. go with your gut feeling. they are amazing creatures and deserve the same high level of health care we give ourselves.