Tuesday, October 8, 2013

RIP Clyde & necropsy results (or lack thereof)

So, I came home today intending to take Haku to the vet for a necropsy and Clyde to the vet to have his leg looked at.  Yeah, bout that.  My mom called Munster Animal Hospital and asked if they did necropsies.  Turns out, they do not, and they said no one local did.  Ok, come on, I know someone local does.  So, I pulled out the phone book and started calling local vets.  First didn't do small animals (oops), and about the next 10 either didn't do necropsies at all or didn't do them on small animals.  Finally, got one place that didn't do necropsies, but the nice lady told me to call Munster (done), and then said try Highland or Glen View because they knew both saw birds (which are considered exotics).  Turns out, Highland Animal Hospital does necropsies.

So, I go downstairs to get Clyde out for his vet visit... and he's gone.  So then, we had a fresher chin for a necropsy.  So I took him in.  They called back later, said they found nothing obvious that would have caused his death, so they sent out tissues to Purdue.  Said it will take 10-14 days for the results to come back.  That is a long time.  So, now we wait.

The people at Highland were super nice.  Very helpful, very understanding, and they're going to bill me for the tissue samples.  Never seen me before but they're going to send me a bill.  I did pay for the necropsy and body handling, so they did get some money already (just fyi, you want a chin necropsied and body disposed of, it's $166 at Highland), but I was surprised that they'd bill me considering they've never seen me before.  But very nice, very helpful.

I came home, emailed everyone set to pick up a chin and told them what's going on.  So far I've heard back from all four (figures that I have oodles of adoptions set up when something like this happens), three have said that they want me to hold onto the chin for them until this passes, which they're aware that we don't know when that'll be.  The other just emailed me this morning asking what type of illness (don't know), if she'd be putting him in danger taking him home (probably no more danger than he's in here), and I just emailed her back.  So waiting on that.  Also texted the person who was supposed to come for a trial run later today, so waiting to hear back from her as well.

Needless to say, we are no longer going to the chin show this weekend.  That had completely slipped my mind until Meredith mentioned it, but I can't take potentially sick chins and get all the ones at the show sick, so we're staying home.  Boo.  So Meredith will be picking up my order at the show from Ryersons.

Meredith pointed out something, and this could potentially be unrelated to anything else, but all the chins that have passed have been males.  Could be just a coincidence, but that's the current trend.  And all rescues or at least, chins living with the rescues.  None of our pedigreed chins have passed yet.

Juanita (of Hendryx Chins) told me to check they're breath because it'd smell sweet if they had this one health condition.  I took out one female that was looking a little sluggish.  She tried to take off my face (so much for sluggish) and her breath smelled fine.

I had several people suggest it could be a brain issue, which would explain why they're all going downhill so fast.  And could explain Clyde's leg problems, as it seemed to not be broken, but maybe he had some paralysis going on.  I don't know.

We shall see.

No comments:

Post a Comment