When we arrived at the ER, a nurse came to take Lunar back so they could start his exam and I filled out the paperwork and waited to talk to the doctor.
We went over her plan for everything she wanted to do, which involved sampling the fluid and sending it to the lab and then also draining it which would require some sedation. Of course, there were so many other things thrown in. The estimate ended up being a little over $4,000… I didn’t have that kind of money. My dad had to help pay for the initial vet visit and x-rays. So I applied for Care Credit and was denied. My dad let me use his information to apply and we were approved. Still scary though how this was adding up… I knew we had to do what we could for him and my dad agreed even if it would be rough on us.
They told me I could come visit him whenever I wanted, which I loved. Later that day, I got a call from the doctor. The fluid was surrounding his lung, and it was blood. They stopped draining it and developed a new plan. After finding out it was blood, that helped narrow down what the cause could be. They wanted to do a coagulation test and I approved it. The doctor called back and said his bloodwork looked normal and coagulation was normal. So the next step was to go back in, drain the rest of the blood, and perform a CT scan…. which the scan itself is about $1400 and he had to be under full anesthesia so there’s that on top of it. Overall, another few thousand. My dad put it on his credit card… God bless him. We HAD to do it.
I went to visit him that night and he was hanging out in an oxygen cage with all his little IV’s hooked up. He seemed to be in good spirits and I was so happy to see him! I got to open the little door and give him a ton of love and pets and he definitely perked up seeing me! It made me happy to see that he was breathing easier in there and we were about to have more answers the next day. It was definitely hard leaving him after that visit, but at least I made him happy!
The next morning, my dad and I visited him once more before his scan. The doctor said he did great overnight. We both gave Lunar so much love again before they were ready to start prepping him for anesthesia.
The wait for that next call was sooo long. This call was so important because we could find out exactly what was going on. It was the worst call I could have ever imagined…. he had several masses inside and outside his lung that were each 0.2-0.7cm in diameter. One of them had ruptured which was the cause of all the bleeding. They also saw a lesion on the muscle in one of his back legs. The doctor went over things we could do but was honest and said they would not make sense. It was obviously cancer and it was metastasizing… Then he told me that my poor little guy was having trouble with the anesthesia during and after the scan. When they took him off oxygen he was turning cyanotic (purple/blue in the gums.) My Lunar could not be off of oxygen and there was nothing we could do about it. Basically we had no choice but to put him down.
I got off that phone call and just froze. It felt like a nightmare. It just couldn’t be real… So I started pacing and just keeping my composure as much as possible. That’s when I called Will to get here so we could go…