Okay so I took Miller to my vet and had him gone over for his referral and we decided to do hip x-rays. Hip x-rays and blood work all came back normal so we are now trying to figure out what direction to go in. We were having trouble getting into any of the specialists at KSU and I had a friend who suggested that we try Mission Med Vet in Kansas City. I called and the PT called me back and we are heading over there Thursday October 29th. I went into great detail about the time line of injury and what had happened and she said tentatively it sounds like the ilieopsoas muscle. Now I know this is a popular diagnosis right now, especially in agility dogs but it makes sense, especially what is written up in literature. If it is this injury, we will have to rest miller quite a while and try stretching, icing, and heat to combat the injury. That would mean no nationals and no agility probably until January. I am at peace with this decision and will rest him as long as I need to so that he can come back and be competitive again. I feel like he still has a couple of good years of competing left in him if we can get him over this.
Now to the touchy feely part of this. I have been basically told I am being negative and giving up too soon about nationals. Well, here is my response to this. First of all, I have been working for a solid year on getting him qualified for every event at nationals. To imply that i am giving up after I worked so hard to get him in to the big show is like a slap in my face. I have been trying so hard to keep my emotions out of the decisions I am making for him and trying to keep myself out of the pity pool I so desperately want to drown in. I want to run him, I want to go, I want to win, but what good is it to have these feelings if he isn't sound. What sense does it make for me to go 22 hours and hope that he can perform or that I can get a few good runs out of him when I could be doing more damage to him. He is 1o years old and injuries are going to affect him differently now and are going to take a heck of a lot longer to heal. I am not rushing into any decision but I am being realistic here. I am trying my damndest to get him to every vet and specialist I can so that we do have a diagnosis and we can fix this, no matter how long it takes. For someone to imply and I mean imply that I am not doing all I can really, really hurts. I hope I don't ever make my friends feel as shitty as some people have made me feel about this whole situation. I am doing everything I can in my power short of selling my soul to the devil to figure out what is wrong and fix it. I have said over and over again that I will not make a decision as far as nationals goes until I know what is wrong. Then me, my vet, and whatever specialist I am working with will make that decision. Rest assured it won't be made lightly. I hope that everyone can understand this and if you can't, i am sorry that you have your head so far up your own butt that you can't see this. I am being selfish here because this will directly affect my teammate and having gone through this last year, truly, truly hate it for her. I am thinking about my dog and his career and his longevity. If that is wrong, then whoever has issues with this should put themselves in my shoes and walk a mile. Everyone in this sport has had a dog with an injury at some point and has had to make decisions just like this one so I know this isn't a new thing for people to understand or deal with. I say to them, think about how you felt when your dog was injured?
Okay I feel better now. Part of the problem with all of this is that I do blog and I do facebook about his issues and what I am doing so I get lots of comments. I need to just pull back and not tell people I guess. I think they are probably saying things that they think what is best for me but all it is doing is really hurting my feelings and really making me mad.
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