Navigating Veterinary Care: Emmett’s Comprehensive Health Check at Purdue Hospital

Yesterday, Emmett had his round of tests at Purdue’s small animal hospital. He was due for a battery: blood work, x-rays, ultrasounds, and aspirations of three new lumps.

These Purdue days are very long days, and yesterday was compounded by John being out of town. It’s about 2.5 hours each way. I left the house extra early – at 7 – to drop Lucas and Cooper off at doggy daycare. Then, Emmett and I drove up to Purdue for his 10 am appointment.

The way it works there is that you get checked in, then at his scheduled appointment time, you meet with an oncology technician. She went through his chart and paperwork. We discussed the medications he’s on and any side effects (none, thankfully), appetite, energy level, all that good stuff. Because he had a few new lumps, she went over those next and mapped them for the oncologist to check out.

Then the stressful part starts.

They basically execute each test and procedure as the equipment and staff are available, which means they take him back around 10… and he finishes up sometime after 3. For me, sitting in the lobby and worrying makes the whole experience far more stressful. I think the techs understand that, and they offer to take your cell phone number and call with updates throughout the day. So, I left my number and went to the nearby mall to do some Christmas shopping. I spotted the Pinups for Pitbulls book at the West Lafayette Barnes and Noble!

Anyway, by the time I finished up shopping, I still hadn’t heard from the techs. It’s excruciating to wait all day, that’s for sure. I ended up at Starbucks – I brought a pile of papers to grade, and ate scones and drank coffee. Just after 2, the oncology resident called and said that he wanted to meet with me around 3. I panicked. At his past appointments, the doctor came out to the lobby, said “all good news,” gave me his paperwork, and that was that.

So, I rushed over there and waited. And waited. And waited. Then waited some more.

Just before 4 the doctor called me into an exam room. By that time, I had burnt off all those scones calories from jiggling my legs and wiping sweat off my palms!

His blood work was good, though his liver enzymes were slightly elevated again, despite being on Denamarin, a liver drug. He said the elevation wasn’t enough for him to worry yet, but we’re going to repeat the blood work in four weeks. Two of the three lumps were just fat cells.

The third, though, they’re concerned about because it’s a different texture, much firmer, than the others, and he wasn’t able to get a good sample for his slides. He did send what he had to cytology, and I’m still waiting to hear back. They promised a call today, so I’m basically sitting here holding my phone.

On the drive home, I realized he didn’t mention the “gall sludge” that showed up on his last two ultrasounds, so when he calls I’m going to ask about that.

We made it to doggy daycare by about 6:20 – they close at 7, so I was nervous – then back home twelve hours later, just before 7 pm to decompress. (Wine.)

So, that’s where we are! Worrying about the results is definitely keeping me distracted, and today hasn’t been particularly productive! Thanks so much, everyone, for all the wishes and crossed fingers on Facebook yesterday. As soon as I know what’s what, I’ll leave a note in the comments below.

Waiting… waiting… waiting…