Quote Originally Posted by Jessika View Post
Hubby and I were talking, and we both strongly agree that IF the ONLY problem with Emma's condition is not being able to urinate or defecate on her own, there is absolutely NO reason why we can't manually express her. I even told him, HJ look, if your parents don't or can't take on that responsibility, *I* will take her, I will teach your mother, I will adopt her, and if down the road I find I can't, I will find someone or some place that will. We both agreed that she needs to go to another vet for a second opinion (and HE said this, not me, though I agree also!!!), and there is absolutely no reason for her to be euthanized *IF* the only problem is her not being able to urinate or defecate.

Now, again, there may be other problems going on with her that I'm not aware about. Obviously her spine is broken; easy fix - amputate the tail. They are/were already planning on doing that anyway, but wanted to wait to see if she goes on her own first.



Also, she has a very nasty infection on her rear end... her anus and vulva are green and purulent and very enflamed. They do have cream that they put on it daily but I'm not sure why that may be an issue or what the cause of that is.
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and her vet telling her something different probably isn't helping the situation any, either.
YAY!!! I really suspect she'll be OK in the end, or at least mostly so. If she's expressed regularly, she may not need diapers; what ain't in can't leak out! LOL I only diapered Buddy at night sometimes; occasionally he got into a thing where he slept so soundly he'd drown the place.

The butt infection is NOT typical; I wonder if those injuries came from the same incident that damaged her tail? If she's not on abx already (to prevent UTI), ideally they should pick one that covers both.

As for vets, like everybody else, not all vets are created equal. The BEST vet we've ever had was here during Buddy's first 6 months here, and she is also an RN. Vet med tends to lag behind human med, especially in relation to disabilities, so it was unheard of, at that time, to use gabapentin for nerve and spinal pain in critters. She immediately saw the validity of what I was suggesting and got right on a dose for it, whereas most vets would've given me a hard time. Now, 2 years later, it's rare but not unheard of, and Buddy helped spread the word. It broke my heart when I found out she'd gone to a practice 50+ miles away.