As Abby aged, getting her to the vet was harder. She had to walk more than she was used to and well past her comfort level. I had to help her in the car and pick her up and put her down to get her out. On her next to last visit to the vet, her visit was terrible. Normally, I was satisfied with the treatment the vets gave my pets but on that day, they fucked-up all the way around.
On our way back to the examination room, we stopped by the scale to weigh Abby but had to take a detour. The scale had urine on it. Accidents happen, but to leave behind a puddle of pee is unhygienic, unsanitary as well as half-assed housekeeping. We had to go an extra 50 feet, which for an old, feeble arthritic dog like Abby is excruciatingly far. The vet tech, the very guy I first saw from 13 years before then when I brought in Father, always had a sharp and hasty edge to him. He was walking at a fast clip; Abby labored to keep up. After several yards, I snapped at him to slow down. The tone jolted him but he did slow down.
Finally, we made it to the other scale. We had to walk a country-ass mile in country-ass Knightdale to get there. Abby had something to say about this trip by the time we arrived at our destination. She shit on the floor right by the scale. She has used scatological messages before to let me know how she feels. On that day, she told the vet “Shit on you, asshole.”
The vet tech weighed her and took her blood. Several minutes later, the vet handed me a piece of paper, a print out of Abby’s blood analysis. He circled her BUN and creatinine levels; both were high. Before he said anything, I knew what that meant. My dad had end-stage kidney disease so I was familiar with these measures to determine kidney health. My Baby Girl had kidney problems. All the years of Deramaxx took a toll on her kidneys. The vet asked if we could scale back on her Deramaxx. There is no way, I said. She was in constant pain and couldn’t live without the pills. I felt like a death warrant had been handed to her.
While we were there, I asked the vet to clip her nails. Since Abby didn’t move around much, her nails didn’t naturally trim themselves when she walked. I had this done several times before with Abby without any incidents. This time would be the exception. On one nail, the vet cut too close and drew blood. He used some lame ass excuse that Abby had pulled away. What a shitty thing to do, to blame an old dog. I secretly questioned his skills but didn’t vocalize my concern. He tried to stanch the blood flow but he really dug in there. He finally had to use a special agent to stop the bleeding, a silver nitrate based compound. After 10 minutes, the bleeding stopped.
If that guy charged me for addressing her bleeding, I was going to raise hell but luckily, he didn’t. He shouldn’t have even charged $15 for the nail clipping service since he fucked it up, but he did. I paid the bill and took Abby back home. I was sad having to face the likelihood of Abby’s imminent demise. And it was near.
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