Everytime my parents take a holiday, something bound to happen to Tiger but this time round, it's far more severe than any of the previous times. Weeks ago, Tiger had traces of blood in his pee but we kinda brushed it off without paying much attention. Big mistake! On Friday night, he couldn't pee so i thought, well maybe we should just observe him for a day or so. In the morning, i received an MMS from my brother, a voice recording of Tiger's whining. After hearing it, i starting making phonecalls to various vets but they were all fully booked and would only see the animal in an emergency case. It didn't take long for us to know that it's an emergency because at late afternoon, i received a call from his nanny telling me that Tiger has gone into convulsion. I knew the urine will be toxic to his kidneys but i was just too dumb to link the different pieces of information together.
I then got his nanny to send him to Simei because they close later on Saturdays. I specifically told his nanny to take a cab and I'll reimburse her and this was an hour before the clinic closes. I took a cab down from town only to find that she's still home waiting for her husband to pick her up in his huge industrial lorry. I was furious but thank God i didn't blow and was able to hold my cool. My parents would have killed me if i ever raised my voice at her. They were in love with her!
The vet then tried to make him pee but his renal or whatever passage was blocked so they have to poke a hole and draw his pee out. By then he was all soft and his eyes were all blood shot. His pee were all bloody. We had to send him to Balestier immediately to the Animal Hospital and the vet at Simei would go over when she's done. While waiting aimlessly and our eyes half closing, Dr Ly (Top vet in Singapore) walked in and chatted with us. Upon hearing Tiger's plight, he declared Tiger's case an emergency and you can imagine the drama that followed. Everyone in the clinic was summoned for Dr Ly to perform the operation on Tiger himself with the help of at least 2 other vets. I knew the cost was going to be shy high since Dr Ly was pretty well known for his skills and the cost of seeing him. Just to put things in view, to get a consultation with Dr Ly takes about 3-4 weeks in queue. I was glad Tiger was in good hands and cost wasn't exactly on my mind. Well, he did tell me it will cost a couple of thousands of dollars.
That night alone came up to almost $3000 excluding other costs like hospitalisation and such but frankly, it's not expensive to save my dog's life. And for 3 vets to be operating on him at the same time, it's a reasonable price to know that he's in good hands. However, i already had problems with a shocking credit card bill. Remember i mentioned earlier about a low credit card bill last month? That's because it's all billed to me this month. How clever. How unfortunate.
Tiger is already recovering. He's still in the ICU but he can at last wag his tail. He's not moving much nor is he eating. They had to force feed him some nutritious liquid to keep him alive and he's still on drip in order to flush out the impurities in his kidney. This is the first time in my life i heard that dogs have ICU and that they are given epidurals as a form of regional anesthesia. The vets removed say 20 stones from his kidney and his urinary passage which we later found out was the thing blocking his pee from coming out.
I'm just glad he's getting better by the day. He'll be discharged tomorrow. Will update you guys on his blood test and the lab test results of the stones tomorrow.
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