Just over a month and a half ago, we lost our beautiful dog Pixar. It started, with her acting a bit unusual, so we took her to see Dr. M and soon discovered that Pixar had an infection. She was put on antibiotics for 10 days, but the infection didn’t clear-up . Dr. M did further testing and discovered that Pixar had a tumor in her spleen which could have ruptured at any time. To save her, we needed to remove her spleen, which was an extremely risky surgery itself. We decided that the best course of action, with the guidance of Dr. M, was to do the operation.
At that point, we had no idea if the operation was going to be a success or failure, but we had to try. Following the operation, Pixar had a couple of rough nights. Her temperature would not go down, she had trouble standing up on her own, and was unable to regenerate her red blood cells. Everyone was baffled as the operation was successful. My daughter was in constant contact with Dr. M for direction on how to proceed. Dr. M did further tests trying to figure out why Pixar’s blood levels kept dropping. We then found out soon after from Dr. M that Pixar had a bone-marrow issue and was unable to reproduce red blood cells on her own, resulting in her levels dropping rapidly. Even with that information, we wanted to do a blood transfusion. We had everything set up to do the blood transfusion with the amazing help of Dr. M and his team. Unfortunately, Pixar’s test results were not ideal and indicated the tumour in her spleen was cancerous and had led to leukaemia in her blood.
Finally, at that point there wasn’t much more we could do, if we tried to save her, she would have suffered in the process. We then said our good-byes to our beautiful Pixar who had a personality large than life. While this process was extremely emotional, the support from Dr. M and his team never faded. They truly made us feel like family and constantly reminded us that they were there for us every step of the way.
To Dr. M this is not just a job, it is a labour of love. His love for animals and compassion for his clients should be an inspiration to vets everywhere. Thank you Dr. M and the Truscott Animal Hospital team!
Shameem B