Where to start?

Well, since I last came by MyCorgi.com, Spider had a bout with lyme disease which was successfully treated and was pretty healthy and happy until late last December, when he stopped eating for several days before becoming violently ill.

I had made an appointment to take him in the next morning due to his decreased appetite but ended up rushing him to a 24 hour emergency vet hospital after I discovered how sick he'd been (all over the room and then some). Fearing he was not long for the world, I sat uncomfortably in the waiting room while they did x-rays and bloodwork. Finally, they came out to tell me that he was diabetic, and because it had gone untreated due to us not knowing he had the disease, he had developed ketoacidosis and would surely die without immediate treatment. Now, at the time, money was tight because we had been planning on moving out of my in-laws into our own place and did not have a lot of wiggle room in our budget, so I was dreading the prospect of not being able to afford the work he needed and would be forced to have him put down so that he wouldn't suffer any longer.

They gave me the option to have them give him subcutaneous fluids to help his dehydration and I could go to my regular vet in the morning to try and arrange something that may end up cheaper. So, we opted for that, since it would have easily reached 1300 or more to have him kept overnight for the IV flushing he needed.

The next day, we took him in and they told us the same, that he was quite ill and because he wasn't able to eat, just putting him on insulin without removing the ketones in his blood wouldn't do the trick. So we arranged for 3 days of intensive IV flushing and insulin treatment. His improvement each evening was significant, though he was still not 100%, he made it very clear he wasn't giving up just yet, and I was greatly relieved that his prognosis was good. Once his treatment was done, we got the basics of how to give him insulin, how to manage his dietary needs and where to go from there.

In the end, the vet gave us a 20% discount on the total bill for treatment for kindness' sake. Considering this makes it the second time he has saved my boy's life (the first being the lyme disease), I'm eternally thankful.

Aside from a couple of UTIs quickly fixed with rounds of antibiotics and plenty of water, and cataracts forming from the diabetes and old age (he hit the double digits in March) and making him effectively blind, he's done pretty well since.

It's now August and Spider is thriving. He doesn't give me any trouble about getting his shots, although sometimes he gets a little bored with his low calorie, high fiber dog food and I have to dress it up a little bit with some chicken broth or small pieces of melon or occasionally a little cheese or drizzle of olive oil so it tastes more decadent to him.