Sunday night our senior rescue beagle, Jack, woke up screaming bloody murder and limping around like his left front leg was broken. Didn't know what was going on. Suddenly he was fine. Cramp? Pinched nerve? Nightmare? He got back in bed and went to sleep.
30 minutes later the same thing happened. Now we noticed a head tilt and circling. Stroke?!
We ran him down to the local after-hours pet ER. He was back to normal but they did blood work. No problem. She starts pointing at things on an X-ray of his body cavity, saying words like "tumors," "cancer" and "euthanize."
What?!
We left him in their care for overnight monitoring, fluids and further x-rays until they closed at 7am and the only local internal medicine specialist/oncologist opened up (in the same building) so he could do an ultrasound. If we slept at all that night, we were having nightmares about it.
The next morning the specialist walks in and was like, "nah, he doesn't have cancer, he's got a slipped disc in his neck." What?!
He also discovered (by chance, via the x-ray) that he has Pneumothorax (small hole or leak in a lung lobe.) He isn't showing any symptoms so we're just going to keep an eye on him for now. He may require surgery down the road if it gets worse.
Here is the kicker. We were supposed to leave Friday morning to go to Colorado for a week (Cayenne Turbo and an Airstream, realizing a dream.) Turns out,
if we had taken Jack up Pikes Peak like we planned, his lung would've collapsed!!
Providence? I'm almost grateful for the slipped disc now, which we are managing with medication. We completely cancelled our trip. Pretty bummed about our fall vacation falling to pieces but our (four-legged) kids are more important.
Last year's trip to Banff
