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 Gracie's Story

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LabNGliderMom

LabNGliderMom


Posts : 29
Join date : 2010-02-13
Age : 51
Location : Pomona Park, FL

Gracie's Story Empty
PostSubject: Gracie's Story   Gracie's Story Icon_minitimeWed Aug 04, 2010 9:00 pm

The importance of looking for the cause of what Dr. Tim Tristan refers to as "Hissing Syndrome"

I POSTED THIS ON LGG ON MONDAY JUNE 28th:

I noticed Gracie acting strangely yesterday (flipping over on her back repeatedly, hissing, unable to get comfortable, grooming over and over, licking her cloaca, etc) and after a chat with Peggy decided it might be a UTI so best to give her some cranberry juice, keep an eye on her, and call the vet first thing this morning...

So I called the vet at 7:00 am and that is when everything went downhill...

My normal vet for the gliders is on vacation for 2 weeks and only one of the other 3 vets would be in today... one not comfortable "seeing" a glider in person but willing (if I brought a sample and stated her weight) to run a urinalysis and get her some meds if need be...

SO I weigh Gracie... and for those of you who know Gracie or know OF her you already know she is VERY petite... Gracie's exact age is unknown... she is at LEAST 4 years olf but COULD BE much older... so anyway... 50 grams is her weight and that is light, even for her- though she has beent ot he vet and has always been healthy she is just TINY... but this is light even for her by at least 5 to 10 grams... so I do a tent test... and she is VERY dehydrated.

I call the vet 6 miles away- will they sub-q and call Tristan? No- but they WILL call their 17 mile away office and ask if THEY will... but NO they won't do it either- they suggest I call the only glider vet they know of... MY vet who I tel them AGAIN is on vacation for 2 weeks... so they tell me to go to GAINESVILLE which is about 2 hours away. Ugh.

SO I call my regular DOG vet and they are not happy but WILL do it... but it makes me nervous, them not being a glider or even exotic vet AT ALL...

Meanwhile I am talking to Peggy the whole time and trying to text Paula for her vet's info because I think Paula is still in Orlando on vacation, I am SHOCKED when she respond immediately to my text and says BRING HER NOW. SO I (okay I admit it- I was speeding) made the hour and 30 minute trip to Paula's house in like 50 minutes and we go to HER vet (a glider knowledgable vet, thank God) where they have to sub-q, wait, and sub-q AGAIN and wait before they can even get a urine sample and guess what... she has a UTI, just as Peggy predicted (go ahead, Peggy, send me your diagnosis bill, LOL).

So they give her Baytril ont he spot, by now it is 11:30, and then they give her Torb since she is in pain and we wait again and they sub-q once more then she takes a nap and perks back up and is MUCH better... so they send me off with Torb, Baytril, and another sub-q syringe and fluid JUST IN CASE and tell me to check at 2:30-3:00 and do another tent test then and if she fails to sub-q one more time and to give the Baytril every 12 hours for a week.

3:00 comes and goes and Gracie passes the tent test with flying colors and I drive home MUCH relieved... then there is class work (today began the summer B term at my college) and house work and all that jazz and I did a bit of reading and catching up here on all the "stuff" several people filled me in about today while I was MIA... and now that I just gave Gracie her 2nd does of the Baytril, I am taking the time to share her story... (before I go take a wshower and fall exhausted into my bed) because there is a MORAL to my story...

HAVE A VET... then have a BACKUP VET... then have a BACKUP VET for your BACKUP VET and have these and a list of others near you available to you at ALL TIMES. Keep the list handy- keep at least the top three including one with 24 hour emergency care hours in your contact list on your home and cell phones both- and make SURE you update at LEAST once a year by checking with vets in case offices move, numbers change, new vets join a practice or old ones retire- and CALL THEM ALL once every 12 months or so to ask: do you see gliders at all? will you in a life or death emergency if you don't in general practice? what are your hours and prices, expecially for emergency services after normal business hours? Will you do phone consults with glider knowledgable vets if need be, especially in an emergency? And have the contact info for consulting glider vets on hand or listed in your file at the vet's offices, too.

These things are IMPORTANT. Share them with your friends, with your family on the boards, on your websites, on your social networking sites, and post them where others can find them if you are unavailable and someone else must help your gliders in your absence. These things could save a gliders life- yours or someone else's- Gracie didn;t die- she just had a bad UTI- but what if? Never wonder what if yourself... compile vet info TODAY.


THEN ON MONDAY JULY 26th:

she finished her antibiotics and seemed better for a bit there...

Then Sunday morning I get up and hear hissing and I think, oh no- not again... I pull Gracie out of her pouch and see that her cloaca is swollen and she has been over grooming between there and the base of her tail... (not SMing - she wasn't attacking it or having issues leaving it alone - she had just licked it raw trying to clean it since she had some feces stuck in the fur there). But being the worry wart that I am, I stuck her in an e-collar and headed for the e-vet over in St. Augustine.

Unfortunately, all they did was a culture- they didn't even want to touch her really- the only e-vet there who ever handles gliders was on vacation. They did get on the phone with the exotic/glider vets at UF in Gainesville, though... and let me talk to the vet while they emailed her pictures of the area. SHE felt it could be stones or some other kind of "blockage like constipation"... but she told me straight up that if I had a regular glider vet, I should wait and take her to him Monday morning... the charge for getting a vet into the UF office after hours is $200.00 - AND they MAKE you pay 75% of "the high end" of "whatever they feel the bill even COULD be" and that is UP FRONT. She said they do NOT do payment plans and that they WOULD turn her away EVEN at the risk of her health if I did not pay the 75% up front... and she told me the range for what she "thought" this was might be $500.00 to $1200.00 so if I had a regular vet I should keep an eye on Gracie overnight and take her in to see her regular vet then. She also said to keep her in the e-collar and to coat the area with sugar, which she said would "draw out the swelling". All of which is what I did.

Of course, I am a HUGE softy- and Gracie is my glider who HATES being confined... a zipped bonding pouch makes her flip out... so you can imagine what the e-collar did to her... of course I spent half the night on the floor beside the hospital cage so she could be out of the collar to eat and drink- she did eat some and drink some but not much- and she did not even try to groom the area, either. Regardless, her cloaca continued to swell and feel "hard" and there was a large "area" showing up in the center of it that was very dark in color like a blood clot.

This morning I was in the vets office as soon as they opened and of course the vet was running late <sigh> but once he arrived, he looked at the whole thing- the swollen cloaca which he commented was "obviously not the vaginitis he envisioned when the office called him upon my arrival"- the darkened clot-looking center of the cloaca which he said "could be a tumor possibly" or that "may be due to impaction"- the over groomed area which upon closer inspection is really "raw meat with no skin left on it" in a spot about half the size of a dime- and her weight which is only 60 grams but she has always been my petitest glider (though the weight and this whole thing started to remind me vaguely of Andi's issue with Shy last year).

The first thing he said was that he wanted to NOT do surgery if it could be helped... he felt the risk was just to high... he palpated the area and almost immediately it was like she totally relaxed- there was an "ahhhhh" look on her face- and then urine flowed out of her cloaca like it was a water faucet. We decided that aside from the "possible tumor" which he'd rather look at after we got her healthier, this was "likely" a stone that had passed when he palpated... they gave her Metacam for inflamation & pain and Baytril for infection and Silver Sulfadine ointment for the raw area and Gracie took a nap and slept the whole way home. Since then she drinks like there is no tomorrow every time she gets up and she is eating more and accepting her favorite treats again.

HOWEVER

This evening she is swellign again and thought her vet showed me how to dot he palpating thing he did this morning, either I am not doing it right or it is just nor working. Granted it is NOT as swollen as it was this morning... but it IS swelling again and that dark spot is showing again when after the vet this morning the swelling subsided so much I couldn't even see it anymore. So... another long night in store and another trip to the vet in the morning... please pray for my little Gracie girl- she's the first female glider I ever got- mate to my first ever glider, Scout- and she means the world to me... I'm going to take a nap while my husband is awake enough to let me know if she is in distress...

THEN ON TUESDAY JULY 27th:

I sped to the vet’s office with Gracie this morning. My vet was actually on his way to his other office a good distance from my regular one when he got the call that Gracie and I were on our way and he did a u-ey and headed straight for us, arriving at the office shortly after Gracie and I did. I wish there had been more that we could have done for her, but there was not. Gracie torsioned and prolapsed her bladder, which blocked off her cloaca entirely, causing her to rupture her colon. I held her as she crossed the bridge and after composing myself managed to participate in the necropsy.

Gracie’s vet feels that given the extensive size of her duodenum and kidneys, this may have been caused by tumors or stones… the urinalysis he completed after draining her swollen bladder found blood and protein in the urine, a high PH, an almost normal specific gravity, and no stones he felt were large enough to have caused the original blockage. Her bladder being torsioned as well as prolapsed was causing it to become necrotic — and it was so damaged that even in death he could not get it back completely in place. In addition, sepsis was setting in, as her abdominal cavity was full of feces from the ruptured colon.

It is very hard to talk about this right now- but since it might help another glider for everyone to know what Gracie went through, I am posting it. I am also posting a link to a few photos I took during this ordeal- [url=https://s487.photobucket.com/albums/rr239/hammockhavenlabs/Sugar%20Gliders/Gracie%20At%20The%20Bridge/]WARNING: THESE PHOTOS ARE GRAPHIC AND MAY BE DISTURBING.[/url


Glide free, my first girl — we miss you and love you so very much.


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