From:
Larry McFarlane
Date: 2001-04-22 09:58:00 UTC
Subject: Socks
This morning, unexpectedly, I lost Socks, my grand old man.
He was 6-6 1/2 years old. In January he had adrenal
surgery-right one, so deeply embedded in the vena cava it had
to be done by cryosurgery. He also had lung problems. But
everything with him seemed to be going fine since surgery.
Friday he vomited (unbeknownst to me) and when I got home from
the 2nd job Larry told me he wasn't feeling well. I saw him,
put him in the sick cage. He used to get the runs off and on,
and Pepto-Bismal would take care of it.
Got up Saturday morning, was holding him and he vomited so
hard I had to hold him, then I got in touch with his Purdue
vet. She thought perhaps helicobacter, so Amoxicillin and
Pepto for him. She also did subq fluids as he was slightly
dehydrated.
This morning, Sunday, I found him half out of his hammy, cold,
unresponsive. Bowels and bladder released. I held him, Larry
called Harvey & Helga Clarke and Helga talked to me for at
least 1 1/2 hours. Socks started making crying noises so we
got him to Purdue's emergency clinic. Just before we left
home he had two more runny bowel movements. They put sugar
under his tongue (I'd done sugar water Saturday with no
response to anything with him), slapped IV fluids into him,
and glucose. They said his glucose was 10. Then he started
having seizures. The vet came out twice, the 2nd time he and
I had a serious talk. He thought perhaps an insulinoma, but
he said something more serious was underlying it. He told me
whatever it was, none of this was my fault-I didn't miss
anything (I still wonder what I could have done). He told me
the prognosis wasn't good, Larry came back from being gone and
I had the vet repeat the information. Then I made the
decision not to continue on-that if the prognosis wasn't good,
I wasn't going to allow any more prodding or poking on him.
So I held my boy as he went to the bridge. Purdue will be
doing a necropsy on him to discover exactly what went wrong.
Rebecca & the Crew of Merry Mayhem-who all are missing Socks
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art
crunchy, and taste good with ketchup"