Our Plight Down a Dismal Road
Palliative treatments are those treatments that are aimed at not curing the disease, but increasing the patient’s comfort. It is an area of some controversy, as some people don’t believe it is right to put an animal through procedures–be they surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, the list goes on–if there is no way the animal will be cured of the disease in the end.
Whether the reasons be financial, ethical, compassion, or personal, many people feel passionately about their stance. People say that veterinary medicine is rapidly evolving, and that the “younger generation vets” are more pro-treatment and active to find a diagnosis; I would have to agree, and say that I typically fall into that stereotype. I for the most part believe this is a positive step for veterinary medicine. Mostly.
Even how you & your vet reach a diagnosis should customized. We went against the text-book medicine route, as we felt it was pointless, and would only cause her pain.
It was a personal experience, the loss of our first pet as adults, that truly opened my eyes and made me realize it truly is a personal decision, one that must be customized by every pet owner, pet, and vet. I wish Dr. Jed and I had not gone through the story that follows in a multi-part post, but am grateful for the lessons it taught us.
It was the evening of October 27, 2008. Dr. Jed and I were newlyweds, and he was back in school full-time studying for his MBA and working as a business consultant, while part-time still “vetting;” I had taken over the hospital. He had just returned home from night school when Madison, our beloved Great Pyr limped. Just a little bit, but with two vets as parents watching over our four-legged children like hawks, not much gets past us medically.
We immediately did a lameness exam on the kitchen floor, and Dr. Jed found a slight swelling towards the end of her radius, one of the bones in her front leg. Read the rest of this entry »