I don't claim to have a special gift that allows me to speak with animals. No matter how much I meow at cats, I very rarely get a response back from them that means anything worthwhile. Not that I would understand it anyway.
BUT...
I've of late had some premonitions about pets.
Most recently, I had seen a cat named Melissa. Melissa is an old cat (17 or 18) with chronic kidney disease. She did very well with her kidney disease. Routine bloodwork showed her kidney values to be steadily increasing which wasn't surprising but she was maintaining her weight and attitude was good. I saw her recently for being ADR (ain't doing right) and didn't find much on PE. I gave SQ fluids and pulled some blood. Maybe I sent her home on antacids. The next day, she returned with something going on with her eye. I didn't find much. Which I was super relieved by...cats with kidney disease can detach their retinas with increased blood pressure. But Melissa didn't seem to have this issue. Her pupils were equal and reponsive; negative stain uptake. So I sent her home on some antibiotic drops in case she had a little infection starting. A few days later, we got a fax that Melissa had ended up in the emergency clinic over the weekend with acute glaucoma. I was devistated! I missed it?!? Probably not, but something was obviously starting. So fast forward several more days, Mr. Montique woke me up by literally meowing in my ear at 4am. I instantly thought that I need to call and check on Melissa. That day at work, we received word that Melissa had passed away. How weird is that?
As a rule, unless absolutely nessacary, I don't hospitalize animals. I feel that animals are often better at home with their owners watching them and caring for them. In the hospital, no one is there and the pump goes off and the animal doesn't get fluids, etc, etc...So a couple of months ago, I hospitalize a dog. I kind of freaked out all day about what I should do-chest rads, bloodwork, on and on...I woke up in the middle of the night and somehow, I knew that the dog had died overnight. So in the morning, I called the clinic and sure enough I was right. How did I know? How weird is that?
Then there was the dog who's soul I am convinced I felt leaving her body. This particular dog was a sweetheart with an endearing owner. The owner was a good one and she let us do a lot for her animals. So when the decision was made to euthanize the dog because of bone cancer, no one went unaffected. It was a difficult morning. That morning, as I pushed the Euthasol, I felt a wave of pressure come over me. I know that feeling, a somewhat warm, heavy yet pleasant feeling, was this dog's soul leaving her body. I haven't felt it since. How weird is that?
I don't know what those three stories mean. I'm pretty sure that I have woken up in the middle of the night knowing something about an animal. Sometimes when an animal walks in the door, I know what I must do. Sometimes its easy. The PU/PD dog that has had a history of steroid use...maybe we should check it for diabetes. Sometimes its more like fate. The PU/PD middle aged dog...I wanted to check bloodwork right away. The owner declined and the dog worsened. Bloodwork came back with high calcium and the dog had lymphoma. It took a while and some unhelpful expensive tests to get to that conclusion. I actually didn't make the diagnosis but when I saw the high calcium, I knew it was lymphoma. I believed it to the botton of my soul.
Does having this 'sixth sense' about animals mean something? Is it really a 'sixth sense'? Do all vets have this? OR am I just crazy???
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