The Are No Guarantees…there is No Right or Wrong…

I was fairly fresh out of vet school working in a large veterinary hospital as a general practitioner when my parents called from South Africa : ” Hey, we got a puppy today, a chocolate Labrador, named “Baci!”. Excited for them, I congratulated them and then held my breath….. My parents have always been ” dog” people, but they also like to relax and enjoy a leisure afternoon. Two weeks later the next call came in. ” So, you think 2 years or so until she calms down?” I laughed at them and told them, yeah but I’d add like 7 or 8 years on that but even so don’t expect her tail to ever stop. I laugh about it now, but in retrospect, this crazy bundle of energy and pure joy opened up my parents’ hearts and today they are proud loving guardians to three retrievers, 2 chocolates and one golden. My brother and I chuckle at how they are the replacement kids, but better as my parents seem to have almost endless patience for them and usually come home with an extra suitcase or two just of toys and treats whenever they have to travel.

Baci had the most magnificent way about her, sweetest soul, it is hard to talk about her without shedding a few tears. She unfortunately was a product of some pretty poor breeding and was born with profound hip dysplasia, where the joint cavity that connects her leg to her pelvis was so shallow and irregular , that she suffered discomfort from an early age. My parents consulted with the best orthopedic surgeons back in South Africa and when she was old enough underwent her first orthopedic procedure to stabilize the joint and prevent development of arthritis in that joint. She recovered well and after months of TLC and rehab was back to running and being her happy self. Some time later, at a routine follow-up with the surgeon it was clear the surgery was a success, so much so, there was a huge difference in muscle mass when her back legs were compared. The leg that underwent surgery had bulked up tremendously, now alleviating and compensating for her remaining bad leg. It was at this point  the surgeon encouraged my parents to consider fixing the other side to optimize her future. My parents would do anything for Baci and were blessed to have the means to afford another surgery. So a few months later, when schedules could be cleared so they could be home with her while she recovered, Baci went in for her second surgery. She did well with the second surgery and after 48 hours was cleared to come home. It was not long after she was home that my mom noticed that this recovery was different from her last. Not wanting to eat and throwing up bile, my Mom took her right back into the vet to be monitored. Baci was kept for the day, given some palliative meds to help settle her tummy and sent back home to rest. No one could anticipate how things would change. After a sleepless night of worrying, the following morning it was clear Baci was no better and appeared to be getting progressively worse. Baci was rushed into the emergency clinic where it was found that she had a massive ulcer in her stomach that had perforated and was leaking contents into the rest of her belly, a severe and less common side affect of some popular anti-inflammatory/anti pain medications. After another extensive surgery to try stabilize her, she passed away while in recovery and was not able to be resuscitated. Baci was only a few years old…….

So you may ask, why did I share this with you? The truth is, my parents still to this day question every decision they made for Baci. They always wanted to do what was right by her, and at her young age, giving her a possibility for a future of less arthritis  and chronic need for medications to manage her pain- was the right move. I doubt they would have considered doing such an extensive surgery had she been in her senior years. The fact is, the medications that started that perfect storm and her untimely death, are the same exact medications she would have likely needed to remain on the rest of her life without the surgeries. My parents’ only got to borrow Baci. I don’t believe she was truly ever meant to be theirs for long. She was there to open their hearts and introduce them to the love of a Labrador and thus set the stage for them to rescue their gorgeous boy Duncan, their princess Mila and most recently their golden girl, Hannah,

Here is the thing : there are never guarantees to any treatment we pursue, there is often no right or wrong. Just because a treatment is offered like surgery or chemo is available doesn’t mean we always should pursue them. Sometimes they are completely appropriate and no matter what we do and how perfect the treatment or surgery goes, we can’t anticipate how our pet will respond.

I always recommend sitting down with your veterinarian, getting all the info and then discussing are we after quantity or quality? Is there a path that offers both? or is one going to be compromised for the other? Is the treatment worse than the disease? if the treatment does serve to give us more quantity, is it weeks? is it months?  There are no easy answers….but there are no wrong answers either. Whatever path you may take if  decisions are made from a place of love and advocacy of your pet’s happiness and comfort – that is the right decision.