Heartworms: The Follow-upPart II

I chose the photo above to show the strength and vigor Father had after he had fully recovered from heartworms. He was strong, fast, and had quite a bit of pop in his step. Look at how far he got off the ground in that photo, and he was able to get to the ball first before dogs many years younger than he was.

A few months after Father’s heartworm treatments, I would realize how debilitating heartworms is. One evening, Father went running with me, and during this run, I thought back to the last time Father went running with me, which was weeks before his heartworm treatment. On that run, Father barely made it a quarter of a mile because he couldn’t keep up with me. He had to cut short the run, turn away and head back home. By no means was his inability to keep up with me because of my speediness. My days of averaging 6min/mile on a daily 6 mile run were long behind me, because of my being plagued with injuries. At this point of life, I was a slow footed 200 plus pound man. I attributed Father’s inability to keep up to Father’s age. At Father’s first vet visit, I had asked the vet how old she thought Father was, and the vet said around 5-7 years. Father was definitely middle aged.

On this day, many weeks after he was declared heartworm-free, Father was not only keeping up, but he was literally running circles around me. On our run, Father would often be distracted by something, take a look around, while I kept running down the street. Eventually, Father would scurry down the street to catch back up with me. Father was fast; he had always been fast, but he was even faster now, and he now had endurance. It made me happy to see Father get a second chance at life, and he had a jaunty step now where ever he went.

I didn’t realize how much the heartworms had debilitated Father’s health until he had made a full recovery. Father had been a very sick dog, and he had cheated death twice as far as we were aware. Father would never suffer again.

Heartworms: The Follow-up

(I chose this photo to show how much Father had recovered after being heartworm free. He filled out, and his coat looks really good.)


I took Father back to the vet several weeks after his heartworm treatment. This involved another lovely trip to Knightdale with Father puking and peeing the whole way. In the typical vet visit, we would check in at the receptionist’s desk, wait in the reception area, stare at the wood paneling (the place was built in the late 60’s / early 70’s, decades devoid of architectural advancements and abundant with tackiness), hope that Father wouldn’t try to kill another client’s dog, a trip to an exam room with a pit-stop at the scales in order for Father to be weighed, followed by some more waiting in the exam room, a pre-vet exam by a vet tech, followed by an exam by the vet his or herself.

Father and I were waiting in the exam room a few minutes when a middle-aged man entered the room. It was Dr. Kahdy, a partner in the practice. He himself was a dog owner (Great Danes, I think), and he owned horses, too. Father immediately tried to hide under my chair. It was sweet that Father would come to me for protection, considering that several months ago, all he would do around me was bark and growl. I was starting to gain his trust. Although Dr. Kahdy is a short guy and doesn’t look menacing, he does have a deep voice which must have scared Father more than he already was under the circumstances. Strangers, especially men, scared Father. We speculate that men in Father’s past may have abused him.

Dr. Kahdy could see how scared Father was, and when I told him that Father was scared of strangers, especially men, Dr. Kahdy said “OK” and left the room. A few minutes later, a female vet came into the exam room. She had dark brown hair, blue eyes and was petite and perky. I found her to be attractive. Dr. Lindsay, an associate vet at the clinic, stuck around for several years, but moved to Greensboro because of her husband’s new job. Whenever Father visited the clinic, Dr. Lindsay was almost always the vet who looked after him. With Abby or Andy, they were seen by any and almost every vet practicing at the clinic.

Father was heartworm free; the treatment worked. I knew that Father wasn’t going to die, but I didn’t know if there would be visible changes in him now that he was cured of this disease. A few months later, I would find out what a difference being free of heartworms had for Father’s energy level. He grew stronger and faster by the day. Of course, his gaining weight helped, but it wasn’t until later that I realized what a horrible and yet easily preventable disease heartworms is.

Heartworms

(That photo was taken well after Father recovered from his heartworm infection, but that was about the same area on the same couch that Father would lie on when he was recovering from the heartworm treatments. He particularly liked the round area of the couch on the end.)

There was not much discussion on whether to have Father treated for heartworms. Admittedly, I did not know much about the disease let alone the treatment. What I did know was that the disease could be deadly, and the heartworm treatment, an arsenic based agent, could be deadly as well. I did, however, know that the treatment would be expensive. Interestingly, after paying for Father’s first few vet visits, which included the heartworm treatments, I had spent more on Father’s medical costs in that year than I had spent on my own medical care in that whole decade up to that point. (The year was 1996.)

I did not even know how the treatment was administered (by a shot). Two rectangular patches on the dog’s back towards the rump are shaved out. Then the vet administers a series of injections. From there, I had not idea what to expect other than the fact that there would be no guarantee that the treatment would completely rid the dog of heartworms.

My most vivid memory of Father after his treatments was how lethargic he was. He could barely lift his head to eat, languishing on the couch and sleeping all day. All I kept thinking about was how toxic arsenic is. It reminded me of that scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when the guys were trapped at a cliff’s edge by bounty hunters. Robert Redford balks at the idea of jumping into the river below because he can’t swim, to which Newman scoffs and says the fall alone will kill you. And so it was with Father. He was trapped with this disease and his plan of action was almost as deadly as what he was afflicted with.

The vets also prescribed other medicines for Father, but I was not sure exactly what at the time. The dogs’ medicines came in green containers so as to avoid confusion with human medicines which are usually in brown containers. Looking back and after doing a quick internet search, I can guess that it was some kind of blood thinning agent. The heartworm treatment leaves the dog vulnerable to clotting and subsequent death due to an embolism (pulmonary or heart, but I’m not sure), hence the blood thinning agent which would reduce the chances of clotting.

Anyone with a pet can attest to how difficult it can by trying to administer pills to a dog.
My mom was in charge of that department. At first she would hide his pills in bread and Father took it with no problems. But after a few doses, Father would turn his head away whenever my mom tried to give him a pill. So, my mom switched over to other foods such as turkey, peanut butter, ham or liverwurst. The results were about the same. Father would take the pills for a few tries, but then turn his head away.

It got to the point where my mom would hide the pill in the food, wash her hands to hide the ‘pill smell’, and then hand Father the food. That worked well, and this tactic carried us through to the end of this regimen. There is one other thing to note about Father’s feeding immediately following the heartworm treatments: he would only eat by hand feeding alone. He was too tired and fatigued to get up or even raise his head up to eat. It was very pitiful to watch.

Eventually, Father regained his strength but we wouldn’t know for sure if he was heartworm free until his next visit to the vet.

Father Goes to the Vet: The Pick-Up

Later in the day after the morning I had dropped off Father at the vet, I went back to the clinic to pickup Father. After arriving at the front desk, the receptionist sent me back to an examination room where she said someone would bring Father. I wasn’t in the exam room long until someone brought in a dark, small, short-haired dog. It was Father, and I didn’t even recognize him. He seemed so meek and pitiful looking. His long, black, majestic mane had been shaved off leaving about an inch of hair on him. Even the sheen on his hair was gone. His hair had a dull tone to it. To add insult to the situation in addition to taking away Father’s looks was a tiny, blue ribbon attached to the top of his head. It was as if all of his dignity had been taken from him. He had been stripped down naked, and I was sad to see him like this. Father weighed in at around 35 pounds, which was far short of his ideal weight of around 55 pounds. Father didn’t look good, and it turns out, it wasn’t just cosmetic. Being underweight and flea infested was the least of Father’s problems.

I was about to take Father away when the vet tech told me that the vet wanted to have a word with me. I could tell by her tone that it wasn’t going to be good. A female vet entered the room. I don’t remember her name nor what she looked like, but she was an associate and not a partner in that practice. At the time, the clinic had a bit of a turnover with the associate vets making it hard to remember who they were since they didn’t stick around long then. The one thing I do remember well is her saying that Father had heartworms. The vet explained to me what it was, what would happen to Father if he were not treated and what treatment options were available, and of course, the treatment’s cost, several hundreds.

I didn’t make an immediate decision on something of this magnitude because something like this needed to be discussed w/ Father’s co-owner, my mom. I took Father out of the room, stopped by the receptionist’s desk, paid the bill and left.

On the way home, Father got sick again.

The Last of Princess

Over three months after Princess came to our house, three months after I had notified her owners of her whereabouts, and one day after we had buried my grandmother, Princess’s owners came by our house to take her back. That POS knew damn well that we just had a funeral, there were cars everywhere. She would have to be dead from the neck up not to have realized that there was a death in the family. What that owner did along with her timing was a kick in the teeth. We thought the owners had abandoned their dog, and we had become attached to that Princess.

I can still hear the owner’s scratchy, whiney, country-ass voice right now. She was the kind of person who spoke at you, not to you, and she spoke in the same volume regardless if she were outside or in - loudly.

I didn’t know much about her except for the way she treated her dog, which wasn’t well. She was the kind of owner that kept the dog in a runner out in the back along with a bowl of food and water. Princess would escape from her cage from time to time, though I don’t know why she would want to do that. Princess would chase and harass neighbors walking by her yard. She even came close to biting me a few days when I was out running. Fortunately, I had quick reflexes and was able to turn around and confront her by the time she was able to get to me. The garbage man, at another time, was not so lucky. She bit him.

Something else which stood out to me about how poorly Princess was treated was on a particularly cold day when the highs barely made it into the 20’s and the lows were supposed to get into the single digits. Princess was scratching at some dried out leaves trying to make a ‘nest’ in an attempt to stay warm. For someone to leave a short haired dog like that out in those conditions was negligent, irresponsible and cruel. I came very close to a calling animal control that day, but I didn’t. I hate to be the nosy, busy-body type, but looking back, it was something I should have done.

I didn’t like the owner. For some reason, I don’t think she didn’t like us, but for the sake of decency and civility, I will not disclose why I think she didn’t like us. The woman was a bad dog owner. She let her dog stay at a neighbors for several months, didn’t give much attention to the dog in the first place and didn’t’ take care of the dog’s health needs. A few months after Princess was reclaimed, she made an escape and came straight to our house. I noticed two shaved out rectangular patches in her back indicative of her being treated for heartworms. Heartworms is an easily preventable disease involving yearly check-ups and monthly pills, but the owners wouldn’t even do that for their dog. Instead, Princess had to suffer through a very painful heartworm treatment regimen.

On Princess’s last day with us, the owner called her over. Reluctantly and with her head hanging down, Princess skulked away from us to her owner. Princess would visit us from time to time after that whenever she escaped, but we had to turn our backs to her. I know she was confused and hurt, but it had to be done.