3/15:
She seems to be back on the mend. Favoring the leg a lot less now and seems to have more energy or perhaps desire to be out and moving. Trying to limit her still for another week or so but I think the antibiotics are doing work.



3/14:
Another grand out of pocket. Test after test. No breaks, not ligament damage.

Only thing the doctor can think of at this point is a reaction to a snake bite. I mentioned to him that others and I thought this too, but that I couldn't find bite marks or damaged tissue anywhere. I've looked multiple times.

He shaved her hurt leg, saw nothing. He did say that while uncommon, it does happen that a dog suffers a bite with low enough venom that the usual necrosis never happens, but since snake bites are so dirty, the nearest joint can develop an infection. He thinks she has an infection in her elbow joint and it's causing what I would call her forearm to be extremely painful and swollen.

Got some more pain meds, antibiotics, and a different anti-inflammatory pill.

Good news is he said he sees no reason for a surgery to be necessary. I'm hoping she improves more this week with the new meds. They scoped her elbow joint and sent some of the fluid off to test for infection or cause of inflammation and we should get those results next week.



Previous Update:
Jelly ate finally, a bowl of hamburger so she could have her anti inflammatory. She won’t move much or anything but she has started to wag her tail when I come to her so that’s an improvement.

I carried her outside and she went no. 1 then stared at me until I carried her back inside. She immediately went back to sleep.

She’s on our bed, the one place my wife would never let her sleep! My wife wants her to sleep on my side of the bed tonight while I sleep on the couch.



A weird surprise, the puppy hasn’t napped all day. Won’t let me sit down, she keeps taking me to every door wanting to look inside. I think she knows Jelly is not okay but doesn’t know what to do. I’ve let her smell Jelly a few times without climbing all over her, but she’s just pacing, non stop, while whining.

OP:
Took both dogs to the vet yesterday, made it out just north of 400$, not bad I thought, about half of what Maryland vets would’ve charged.

Wake up last night to let the puppy out and Jelly cant put any weight on one of her from legs. I figure I give it a day or two, see if she twisted it. This morning she won’t eat, won’t move, won’t go out, obviously in pain. So the initial estimate to see what’s wrong, $1k.

At this point I’m praying it’s not broken both for the dog and my wallet.

In perspective though, I have no problem dropping $1k on a firearm, and I’d sell every gun I own to keep Jelly happy. So it’s not that big a deal.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: OttoSig,

Yikes. Is it possible she’s a sensitive girl? Did they happen to pull blood from that leg? Not sure why or how the bill could leap up to a grand that fast. X-rays and bloodwork shouldn’t cost that much?

I agree that financial surprises are the best.

I got an email from my bank last Saturday saying thanks for updating my contact info. Weird. I hadn’t updated any info.

A quick check of my bank shows that someone created a new account under my name, have opened several credit cards under my name. Credit frozen. Bank accounts frozen. Debit card now $100.

Oh joy. Trying to find out if my retirement accounts are secure, if my SSA account is intact.

I hope it nothing serious with Jelly. Im going through some similar things with Bandit. Diabetes, kidney disease, going blind. It sucks but she is going on 14.

quote:

Originally posted by irreverent:
Yikes. Is it possible she’s a sensitive girl? Did they happen to pull blood from that leg? Not sure why or how the bill could leap up to a grand that fast. X-rays and bloodwork shouldn’t cost that much?

I’m between a rock and a hard place. I don’t have a normal vet here, the vet on base is cheap but offers limited services so I’m at an emergency vet, which is commanding a premium.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
I agree that financial surprises are the best.

I hope it nothing serious with Jelly. Im going through some similar things with Bandit. Diabetes, kidney disease, going blind. It sucks but she is going on 14.

Wow,

Hope you get the financial stuff sorted soon. That’s a stressful, and 100% unnecessary problem to be dealing with.

Give Bandit some extra pets from me, I lost my first dog as an adult after 10 years fighting diabetes, the seizures finally got too bad. Dogs sure are tough though.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: OttoSig,

I am right there with you. A few years ago our one dog broke it's back leg-due to age and the type of dog it is common. We didn't want it to suffer and paid the $2500 to get it repaired. It worked out well but sadly a couple months after, the poor dog was riddled with cancer, to the point that a couple months after that we had to put it down.

Not vet stuff, luckily, but the OP sums up 2024 for us...
Got a nice raise this year & it's pretty much all going to recovering from the garbage fire that was 2024.

Keep us posted J. Know how important she is and they are to all of us. Hopefully just a sprain. If you need anything, and I mean it. I can help you out. Just email me. Get well girl.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
Keep us posted J. Know how important she is and they are to all of us. Hopefully just a sprain. If you need anything, and I mean it. I can help you out. Just email me. Get well girl.

Thank you so much, Mark.

She’s back home, nothing broken but she musta done something good to it, one leg is about twice the size of the other one. They gave her a shot of methadone for the pain and that stuff must be good because she isn’t even moving. I carried her in and my wife wanted her in her favorite spot, she was asleep within a minute.

Prayers she's feeling better.

I have a soft spot for dogs

they are a gift and I've been extremely fortunate given all she's been through

For awhile I've been thinking that she's part cat with multiple lives. A week before I moved to AZ, she got into the basement and ate 3/4 pounds of rat poison - actually ripped open the cellophane wrapping around the blocks. She survived that with no ill effects as far as I know - they put drops in her eyes and she coughed it all up. But it was a bit touch and go for a bit for the stuff she absorbed.

Once I moved here, she tried to make friends with a rattlesnake and got bit on the face. That was an expensive day and recovery was pretty long but again she seems to have weathered it.

But for everything you can treat, the one thing you can't treat is age.

My wife bought her a bed, and a sheep stuffy to “love on”.

I said, “she’s already sleeping on your bed”. To which she replied, “now it’ll be double soft to have a bed on a bed”

I don’t quite agree with the logic but her hearts on the right place.

Oh man, that's terrible. Glad to hear she rested some and is now perking up a bit. Hopefully the meds kick in overnight and get the inflammation down. It's the worst when they're hurting and you can't explain it to them or really do much to help. I'll bet she appreciates the night in the bed, though...good luck keeping her out of there once she heals up!

Keep us posted, hopefully she's feeling better in the morning.

I've gone through something similar when your dog is in pain and you don't know what it is or how to help her.

It turned out both of my dogs are old at 10 years old last year and they both hurt their back doing a roll over trick for me. One of them started getting withdrawn. I called her to come and she did but she started howling in pain and peed from the pain.

Took her to urgent care as soon as they opened. Got her checked out. Now they're both on Miloxidyl. They're lively again but I don't make them do roll overs.

To think they hurt themselves trying to please me.

Any update? How's she doing?

I shoulda replied sooner. Yesterday morning I carried her outside. Since then she’s been moving on her own, putting a little more weight on her leg as time goes on.

It continued to swell into Friday night and is still pretty swollen but she’s back to wagging her tail and moving around a bit.

I’m glad she’s not miserable anymore. Really hoping there is no ligament damage once the swelling does down.

Glad to hear she's improving. My dogs have always amazed me with their pain tolerance...the downside is that when they show pain you know they're really hurting. I'm sure she appreciates all the extra care and attention she's been getting. Hopefully she's up running around soon.

Well, swelling is back up and she hasn’t put weight on it for 3 days. Consultation on Friday and likely surgery the same day.

I’m afraid she did something to the shoulder joint or tore something in there.

Sorry to hear J. Prayer for you and Jelly. I hope the vet figures out what is going on is able to treat her so she can get back to 100% health.

OS, I am going to pull something out of thin air. You did not see her hurt herself, there have been no x-rays, see will not use her leg, there is swelling, she would not eat.(sorry for the scrambled symptoms but I am going from memory). Could she have suffered a snake bite?

South Georgia has some really nasty snakes.

Originally I wondered the same. But our dogs history with snake bites would show some sort of decay starting, or at least puss/infection at this stage.

I couldn’t find anything. Definitely wondered that myself.

ORC,

I’ll keep you updated via email. I know you’ve always been Jelly’s fan here and I certainly appreciate that. Hope you and yours are doing as well as can be expected.