Loki on Memorial Day, 2006

We went out last Friday like we usually do.  When we came home around 02:30, I went out to check on Loki.  She was dragging her back right reg and unable to use it at all.  So now we are sitting in the emergency vet clinic about 03:30 and was there for about 3 hours.  At first I thought she may broken the leg because I put up the tomato cages from the garden.  They were in the back corner of the yard blocking the path she would use to run around the yard.  But the x-rays, showed nothing conclusive.  The vet said there were two possibilities, one was a blown disc and the other was an embolism.  We needed to take her to a clinic in either Baton Rouge or Dallas and that speed was of the essence.    She also said that it might require surgery.  She wasn’t sure about the cost but said it could be between two and four thousand dollars.  Pam got a hold of the clinic in Louisiana .  It is at LSU and it is a teaching school.  I knew that.  It was where Donna went to school for 8 years to become a chicken doctor.  Any way, they also said speed was of the essence.  That was on Monday.  We both manage  to arrange to get Wednesday off.  Over the next two days, I thought Loki might be improving some but was unsure and figured it was just wishful thinking.  I was considering all the possibilities and the decision that I might have to make for my friend of eight years.  Needless to say, the next few days sucked for all three of us.  She didn’t go pee for two days and poop for almost three.    We left early Wednesday morning and got there around 9:30 after getting lost in Baton Rouge.    They took Loki in on a gurney because she is such a moose.  We waited for an hour or more.  We were told that it would take longer than a normal vet because it was a teaching school.  Finally we were brought back and talked to the head vet.  He explained that there were the two possibilities as before but the blown disc was highly unlikely since that would have been seen over the period of several days.  He also said that with the embolism that the chances of Loki getting better were actually good.  He said that from the time of the first visit and now, she has shown improvement.  So my thoughts of her improving were not just wishful thinking.  We talked about an MRI to confirm it and he actually recommended against it since if it was an embolism and nothing medically could be done for it, to wait and watch her for the next month with a weekly visit to my vet here in Bossier once a week.  He also did say that the entire procedure for the blown disc would cost upwards of five thousand dollars.  That is out of the question since I don’t have it.

It’s Thursday now and we have an appointment this afternoon with a local vet.  It is called the Jimmy Davis animal hospital and then…