Toby3/22/00 - 6/18/11
It was 1:11am late Friday night, early Saturday morning when the phone rang for the second time. We had expected the first call from the emergency veterinary surgeon, but had hoped that the second one would not come. That would be the one we'd get if there were complications.
About 45 minutes before, we had received a call from the surgeon who was going to perform surgery on our 11 year old cat, Toby. The surgery was supposed to be for to repair a hernia which was pushing his liver into his heart. The doctor went over the procedures and the risks. We were aware of them and had agreed.
Earlier that day, Friday, I noticed that Toby didn't seem to be feeling well. He was breathing a little hard and seemed to have lost weight. Toby is a 17 pound cat, and losing a little weight is not necessarily a bad thing, but he'd lost two pounds when we checked his weight. This was around 1:00 pm.
We also noticed that Toby was having labored breathing. I called our vet and could not get an appointment earlier than 4:15 pm. We suspected that he needed help before then.
Toby's breathing got worse, and we were really starting to worry. We tried to get an earlier appointment at the local vet and at another vet we used to use, but the Friday calendar was booked solid. We have two local emergency vet offices, one in South Bay, 10 minutes from us, and the other in La Mesa. We had heard horror stories about the South Bay emergency center, and didn't want to take him there. We'd never been to the La Mesa center for an emergency, but we had taken Toby there in 2007 for an ultrasound. We decided to take him there.
We had just returned home yesterday after a month-long vacation. Our telephone was not working and we had the repair man coming between 1:00 and 3:00pm. Charlie stayed home to wait for him, although he offered to come with me and cancel the repair guy. I said no, I would be okay.
I called my neighbor who had been caring for our pets while we were gone. I wanted to see if she noticed that Toby was not eating or if he was having a breathing problem. I had to leave a message.
When I got to the La Mesa emergency center Toby was still breathing in short, quick sips. He was alert, though, and not in any apparent pain. In the office there were a couple of other people in the waiting room. I gave the receptionist a short summary of the problem Toby was having. My cell phone rang. It was my neighbor. I excused myself and went outside to talk. My neighbor said she had noticed no unusual behavior in Toby. She said that he had not been wetting his puppy pads as expected in the past few days, but thought he was probably doing it outside. She also noticed that he might have not been eating as much in the last three days or so. She hadn't noticed any labored breathing. When I got off the phone and went back inside, Toby was gone!
The technician had left with Toby. Without me. When the technician came back (without Toby) she had paperwork for me to sign and a bill for $400. To say that I wasn't happy ... well. I told the technician I wanted to see Toby. She brought a doctor in who then told me that Toby needed urgent care and that it was very likely that he would die, citing his labored breathing and that his legs were not functioning. I have to admit that the fear and shock sent me ballistic. I demanded that she bring Toby back to me, and when the technician started arguing about it, I called Charlie.
When Charlie was done with her she fully understood that we were not authorizing anything until we had Toby back. They had not bothered to get Toby's history from us and assumed that his leg problem was part of the emergency and I can only imagine what they must have thought - massive trauma, stroke, whatever.
At this point we wanted nothing to do with this place. Charlie suggested that if Toby had not gotten any worse, we should take him to our local vet, even if it meant waiting another hour to get him in. I had to sign a release form stating that I was taking Toby over the objections of the doctor before they would allow us to leave. I got Toby back, paid $58 for an "office visit" and a little oxygen they'd given Toby to help his breathing, and left.
It was still only 3pm, we could not get into the local vet any earlier than our 4:15pm appointment, and poor Toby had to pee in his kennel. So I took him home, cleaned him up, and let him rest at home until his appointment. We thought about going to the emergency center in Sorrento Valley (a 20 minute drive) where Taz had gotten such wonderful care, but since Toby seemed stable, we waited and then took Toby back to the local vet.
It was crazy busy at the vet's, but we are well known there and the doctor made time to see Toby, bringing us into a room where she could examine him with us present. The news was sobering. Toby's labored breathing was potentially life threatening. She explained that many of the things she needed to do to diagnose the problem could agitate and worsen his breathing (blood work, x-rays, etc). Despite the scary news, though, it was comforting to have a doctor walk through all that with us as she examined Toby. She, too, wanted to get Toby on a little oxygen so that he could breath easier, and then took x-rays to see if she could spot the problem.
The results from the x-rays were not good. Something was either filling his lungs, or something outside the lungs was pressing up against the lungs. Toby was essentially breathing with only a small part of his lung capacity. The vet also took blood work, but would not get the results until the next morning. We had two choices. The vet offered to give Toby medication/shots that might help Toby breath better in the hope that it was something treatable that way, and then get him home where he could rest. The vet was most concerned that the more agitated Toby was, the harder it was for him to breath. The second choice was to take a sample of whatever it was that causing the pressure on the lungs, but for that we would need to go an emergency center where they had the full facilities for 24 hour care. We decided on the shots and rest and took Toby home.
Two hours later Toby's condition had gotten worse, not better, and we took Toby to the Sorrento Valley emergency center.
Unlike La Mesa emergency, who had stolen Toby away without me and presented a bill before even talking to me, Sorrento Valley technicians got us into a private room with Toby, got his history and symptoms, examined Toby with us present, and then ASKED us if he could take him to the on site doctor for a more thorough exam. Toby was in good hands.
Shortly after that the doctor came in personally to talk to us. He'd put Toby on oxygen and he was resting comfortably. We talked awhile, the summary being that the doctor believed that Toby had a hernia, and that hernia had caused Toby's liver to get pushed up into the chest cavity and was now pressing hard against Toby's lung. It would take surgery to fix the hernia and move the liver back where it belonged, plus restore what was essentially a collapsed lung. The surgery would take one to two hours. The doctor told us that many cats recovered quite well from this type of surgery, but that there was always risk that Toby could die. He would need at least 48 hours of hospital care after surgery as well. Toby had no chance for survival without the surgery, so we agreed to go ahead with it.
Since it would be several hours before we would know the results of surgery, we went home to wait.
So, the call came at 1:11 am from the surgeon. Toby did not have a hernia. He had a large tumor that filled half his lungs. The surgeon said he could try to remove it, but because of the size and placement he said there was high risk that Toby would die during the procedure. He also said that it was almost impossible to remove all of the tumor, and that chances were very high that the tumor would return even if the surgery were successful. And if the tumor did return, the survival rate of cancer treatment for this type of tumor was only 5% and not recommended, even for people.
Toby was still under anesthesia. We knew we couldn't put Toby through the suffering that would follow even if he survived the surgery. We asked the surgeon to let Toby go peacefully in his sleep.
Now Toby joins his brother Grady, his “brother by a different mother”, Taz, and his dog, Chelsi, over the Rainbow Bridge. We love you big guy and we're going to miss you terribly.
Toby at about 7 weeks oldMore later.........
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