Wednesday night during a tornado watch while I was massaging her legs, I noticed that the insides of her legs were blood red. By Thursday the red was spreading and getting worse so I emailed our vet to see if whomever was there could offer guidance if this is normal with edema or not. I just didn't know if the red meant it was bad or not. Didn't hear a peep from them. I called to make sure they received the email and was told yes but the vet on call was very busy. Called in the afternoon again asking if they could just tell me if the red was bad and if I should take her to the ER. I was told, just take her to the ER. The vet available can't tell you anything that Dr. Johnson didn't already tell you. Since we still didn't know if the red was bad, we took her to an emergency vet. We didn't want to risk anything bad.
Oh my. We were NOT prepared for this experience. We arrived just at The Parc just as the Vet's would be making a change from afternoon to evening. The first Vet took an ultrasound of her heart looking for fluid and EKG. After she said that she wanted to do blood work and a clot test to see if there is internal bleeding. She then says, she might last the hour that it will take for the results. Yes, you're reading that right. She gave Lucie an hour to live. Talk about blunt. I was weeping my husband was a mess.
Blood work was perfect and so was the clot test. The second evening vet put her on a diuretic and wanted to keep her for observations. Med yes, leaving her there just so they could watch her, no thank you. They did want her to see a cardiologist but the few of them that exist were booked months in advance.
It took some time but the diuretic has helped yet she was still having trouble with her back legs.
The biggest take away that I learned about edema is that redness is normal. It looks horribly bad but is expected with edema.
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