Do You Feel Like You *know* When Something Is Really Wrong?

[Guest LoveSeniorGreys]

Mom always knows...

[KF_in_Georgia]

When my Oreo broke her leg, I was sure it was cancer. It wasn't an intuition-thing. It's just that dogs don't normally break their legs while standing around in the living room, and I'd been hanging out on greyhound forums too long. I was absolutely positive it was a break from OS, and I told the ER vet that the idea of cancer had already occurred to me, so she didn't need to tiptoe around the word.

 

So they did x-rays. It was a nasty spiral fracture--but no cancer. Lovely, clear x-rays showing a truly awful break, but no cancer. (At this point, I'd been sitting in the waiting room, bawling my head off.)

 

Next morning, I met with the orthopedic surgeon. He, too, was convinced that the break was repairable (she'd need a pin implanted). But no cancer. I agreed to the surgery.

 

And she threw a blood clot and died in surgery.

 

After I'd had all those reassurances from the vets, the idea that Oreo might die from "just a broken leg" at the age of 8 was completely out of my mind. I'd gone from panic and dread the night before to heartfelt relief in just a few hours. And when I thought the vet was calling to tell me she was out of surgery and I could pick her up the next day--he actually was calling to tell me they were doing CPR but weren't getting her back.

 

So I've given up on any idea that I "know" when things are wrong.

 

I had a recent scare with Sam, when he generated some bad values on a urinalysis during a routine exam. But after a couple of days I was less worried about the idea he might be in the early stages of kidney failure--not because of intuition but because I could see his behavior and there was no hint of trouble. Subsequent urinalyses (it took two more tests) proved me right.

 

So I've stopped trying to predict things based on intuition. I'll just look at symptoms, law of averages, etc., and take things as they come. I think that trying to judge whether my "gut feeling" is a real indicator or is just a case of too-much-knowledge will have me on edge and frightened unnecessarily. I'm not religious, but for myself I think I need to adopt the idea of Matthew 6:34--Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

[mychip1]

[Cancer took him and my Dad.

 

 

I'm sorry for both of your losses. Sounds like a beautiful dog....

[Tracey]

All our Greys have limped at one time or another and I didn't get "that feeling". But with Cosmo, I knew in my gut it was osteo even when initial exams said it wasn't and she stopped limping for a while.

[JohnF]

I think much of it depends on what we have experienced with our hounds before.

With me it has been Kidney Disease that took 3 of my dogs and so whenever they go off their food, for more than 2 meals, start to drink more, start to get more sleepy, have a strange smell on the breath, then it's CRF on the agenda almost for sure.

 

I can be deeply troubled by limps of course and any limp out of the blue that doesn't get better immediately with about 5 minutes of massaging can fill me with dread. OK, my last dog had an arthritic shoulder all her life but it didn't come out of the blue and didn't affect her in other ways until towards the end of her life at age 14. One of my Borzois had a 'normal' break to a ankle when playing on the beach and I thought that was probably cancer until I saw the physical cause that did it - a nasty rock hiding just under the sand.

 

But to answer the basic question: yes I think I 'know' when something is really wrong, but I've learned to let vets find out what that 'something' really is after first telling them what I feel it probably is. It is wonderful to be proved wrong over things like this.

[Guest MZH]

Cullen (my avatar guy) knew something was wrong with my left ovary long before I did; he kept poking at it for a year. Little did I know he was pointing to it; that occurred to me after it was removed! Later, he started licking a spot near his hip on his abdomen. I knew something wasn't right but the vet couldn't find anything. A year later he developed a huge bump there and he died from it - "it" was a retroperitoneal hemangiosarcoma.

 

It's too bad that medicine isn't as good as intuition.

[Guest racergirl435]

All our Greys have limped at one time or another and I didn't get "that feeling". But with Cosmo, I knew in my gut it was osteo even when initial exams said it wasn't and she stopped limping for a while.

 

I have a similar/recent situation with my boy Seymour. I definitely know when something's wrong but I like to wait for veterinary confirmation before I go one way or the other. Fortunately, his foster mom works at the hospital where I now exclusively take him and they are very "accomodating" to me.

[Guest FastDogsOwnMe]

Yes, with my dogs, my hubby, and my human baby boy. For sure.

[Guest TeddysMom]

I just went through that with Spencer and his peeing. The first urine sample didn't show anything but I just knew he wasn't right so a couple of days later I caught another sample and had it checked again, sure enough he had a UTI and is now on Antibiotics and beginning to be his old self. Luckily my vet never dismisses my gut instincts and will follow up when I tell her that I just know something is not right.

[NeylasMom]

Well I definitely knew with Neyla, but I wonder now if moving forward every time one of my dogs limps badly I will automatically "know" it's osteo.

 

In this case though, I felt it in my gut. I knew the kind of pain she was showing was too severe for something else, I could tell it was in her shoulder, and I also knew she hadn't done anything that could have caused a muscle tear or strain, which was the other option. There are a few people on the board who were witness to what probably seemed like an irrational breakdown. We were at GIG when the limp showed up Saturday morning and after spending the morning driving around alone, I got to lunch with some folks from my group and couldn't keep myself from breaking down into tears. It really upset me off when my friends who were watching her starting the following day (I had to go out of town for a conference) dismissed my concerns, but her limp had nearly resolved by with pain meds so it's understandable. Less understandable when my vet blew me off when she didn't see anything on the x-ray. Thank goodness my ortho wasn't so dismissive.

 

Anyway, maybe I just got "lucky". Maybe I just always assume the worst and in this case it turned out to be true. Or maybe I really did just know b/c I'm in tune with my pups. One dog isn't a really good research study so I guess time will tell.

[Guest Mom2Shiloh]

`This is a pretty intense thread for me. I have to say right away that I am currently trying Not to worry about things, spot things, "Know" things... I so dearly want my current four houndies to have relatively long, trauma-free lives. Silver is almost 11 now, his mast cell cancer seems to be a thing of the past... we say it is, we believe it is, we declare it is. Agnes is only going on 9 and despite a semi-gimpy leg, she's doing pretty well.... and the little boys, Bravo just turned 4 and Callan is 3.5 and they have to play in the sunshine of a few more summers-- they just have to.

 

So I am not looking... but I expect that in due time something will tap me on the shoulder, because I DO "just know", more often than I want to.

 

The most poignant one for me was before my husband, Buck died almost 3 years ago. He had been feeling tired, but nothing really serious... the doctors weren't finding anything.. maybe just a touch of angina. He'd beaten liver cancer a few years earlier... seemed it had to be something simple. But for 2 weeks before his appointment to go into the Vet's hospital for a thorough checkup I found myself just stopping and tearing up and saying to him, for no good reason that I could figure "Don't leave me, just don't leave me." (The night he went in the hospital he was in a coma by 2 a.m. and died because of Babesia 2 weeks later.)

 

Sometimes it's not who, or what we might suspect when we have premonitions, however -- and sometimes its not nearly as bad as it might be....