Good news!
Well, the bad news first, I guess: the veterinary ophthalmologist thinks that the spot on Rosie's iris is a melanoma. The good news: while in cats these melanomas are often extremely aggressive, they are often benign in dogs. Her recommendation is to bring Rosie back in a year to look at it again and make sure it hasn't grown. All in all, it's pretty much the best news under the circumstances, so I am quite thrilled.
Little Rosie, by the way, hasn't been bothered by this melanoma in the slightest, except in so much as it has made her the subject of much poking and prodding. At the animal hospital this morning, when the head ophthalmologist came into the room, the vet tech undid Rosie's leash a bit prematurely (before getting her onto the exam table) and Rosie immediately hid underneath a filing cabinet. It was a good thing I brought treats with me to carefully and slowly coax her into the open, only to get her head held straight while people shined more bright lights into her eyes. Luckily, she still seems to trust me, which is really heartwarming, considering that I don't think she gave me, nor had I earned, that level of trust in the first six months to a year of our relationship. But despite putting her through two cab rides, endless eye tests and inspections, and giving her an eye drop after we got home, all she wanted to do was curl up with me on the bed as usual.
And this is why I'm feeling really good about myself today. I think I am often fighting what I perceive in myself to be a tendency to overreact. If Rosie seems slightly off in anyway, I find it comforting to take her to the vet and be told she's fine, but this can be an unnecessary anxiety, not to mention an incredibly expense. So, more often than not, I convince myself that she's probably fine, and I'll just keep an eye on the problem to make sure it continues to be fine.
This is the attitude I was cultivating two months ago, when I started to suspect Rosie might have a urinary tract infection. She was peeing a little more frequently on our walks and trips to the dog park, and at one point I felt like she was just squatting and letting out a few drops—all disconcerting signs of a UTI. But I decided to just assume things were fine until I felt really confident otherwise and keep an eye on it.
Then one night, about five days after I started to suspect she might have a problem, I came home at about 11:30pm a little drunk, and noticed that Rosie seemed off—panting, sticking close to me, and just generally behaving a little differently. Even in my inebriation, I decided that maybe she needed to go outside, and as soon as I grabbed the leash, she perked up. She ran down the stairs, and almost as soon as we got outside, started peeing a dark-colored liquid. I pulled out my keychain light to illuminate the puddle, and it was bright crimson. She was peeing blood.
I called my vet's number, knowing they'd be closed, but through the voicemail was connected to an emergency service. They said it was probably a urinary tract infection, and that it wasn't a strict emergency, but I should definitely get it checked out tomorrow. I spent the whole night checking to make sure Rosie was still breathing, and when 8 AM finally rolled around, called my vet and made an immediate appointment. After they got a urine sample from her, the vet expressed shock at just how much blood Rosie was peeing.
Of course, she ended up fine. I gave her antibiotics for two weeks, and they seemed to help her out pretty quickly. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but feel guilty for not having done something when I noticed symptoms earlier, and not waited until there was visible blood in her urine. I felt like I'd really let her down as her caretaker and failed a key test as a dog owner.
When I noticed the dot on Rosie's iris, I think I played it exactly right. I called the vet and talked with her on the phone. When she recommended coming in for an appointment, I made one immediately, and when she recommended I make an appointment with a specialist, I did that as quickly as I could. I didn't feel like I was rushing into something that was a minor or even nonexistent issue, but I also felt like I was doing everything reasonable that I could to make sure my dog was healthy.
When I bring up stuff like this, my shrink has said on more than one occasion, "You know, it wasn't that long ago that a person brought a dog into see the vet two times in its life, once to get its shots, and again when it's time for it go to sleep."
I understand his attitude but I told him, "First, that's not true, because the law requiring annual rabies vaccines for dogs has been on the book in New York State for decades. And more importantly, people may be more prone to paranoia about their pet's health than they used to be, but there's also been incredibly changes in veterinary care in the last fifteen years alone, and I don't have a problem with that." If a dog had cancer in 1990, you probably just found it on an x-ray and then put him to sleep, but now there are animal MRIs, CAT scans, and chemotherapies. It can be expensive, and if you can't afford it then it's that much more painful to realize that you were unable to go the distance for your pet, but that's the price we pay for having the ability to save our pets in ways that used to be unthinkable.
I'm not saying that I want to be a pet hypochondriac, because that's damaging to both me and Rosie, but the right combination of vigilance and action, tempered by common sense, is making me feel like a champion Doggy Daddy today. And I am glad.
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