Monday, Mar 7, 2016

Wow, what a day! We took Keeper to Manta today to have the growth on her leg removed. She is doing great, and we are exhausted!

First, a big shout out to Don and Donna for volunteering to drive us to Manta and get us to the Vet. They were such a big help in this process. Don even helped do some translation with the Vet!

Let me take you through the process we went through today.

First, Manta is a big city. It has over 200,000 people…and probably that many cars! The roads all are one way, so it seems like a lot of right turns to actually get to where you need to be. That being said, Donna did a great job driving and got us to the clinic without any issues.

The Vet does not speak English so it was game on once we hit the door. His assistant took us immediately into the exam room for Keeper to be seen by the Vet. The Vet just started talking too us and asking us questions about Keeper’s health right from the get go…in Spanish!

I don’t blame him. It’s the native language of this country; it’s his language, and it is completely reasonable for him to speak it. I just don’t know it yet, so when the questions started, I immediately went to the deer in the headlights look. Just about then Don came in the room and was able to help us out.

The Vet asked us how old Keeper was, if she had ever been pregnant, if she was fixed, does she pee and poop regularly. We showed her all the strange spots and bumps that have been growing on her. A couple of times we needed to resort to the translator app to ask our questions and get the answers.

The Vet had us leave the exam room, and he took a blood sample from Keeper. He also swabbed some slides with different areas on her skin that looked weird. When he was done with that he had us come back in the exam room, and told us it would be two hours to get the blood work back. He wasn’t going to remove the growth on her leg until he had this information. (That’s my EZ summary…in real terms it was much harder to figure all this out!)

Since we had two hours to kill, we all loaded back up into the Woodbury wagon and went to a couple of stores to find some items people wanted. The Vet had said he would call me when the lab results were back. After 90 minutes and not hearing anything, we decided to grab lunch. We were all starving!

We had lunch at a place on the beach in Manta. We still had Keeper with us and it seemed like the beach was the best chance of being able to bring her with us while we ate. It was hot today; and thankfully, there was a nice breeze blowing off the ocean while we enjoyed calamari and various preparations of shrimp. Heaven.

When we finished eating, we still hadn’t heard back from the Vet so we just headed back to the clinic. We got there and had to wait for a bit while the Vet finished up with another dog. When it was our turn the Vet called us back into the exam room. He told us that Keeper’s lab work had come back perfect… blood, liver, kidneys are all doing great!

He was now ready to remove the growth. We left the room, and they hooked Keeper up to an IV and oxygen, and he removed the growth. While we were in the waiting room, I called our local Vet who speaks English and asked if I could call him back when the surgery was finished so the Vet here in Manta could give him all the details and then our local Vet could tell me in English. He agreed and that is exactly how it went down.

The growth will be sent to Quito to be biopsied and the results will take 10-14 days to get. The stitches in Keeper’s leg need to be removed in 12 days, and we were given a prescription for antibiotics, tablets for pain, and a spray for the wound.

When I asked the Manta Vet what all the spots are about on Keeper, I was told she has bacterial and yeast infections on her skin. I guess we are going to follow-up with our local Vet, but I’m a bit confused if these are active infections or what remains of old ones as we continue to apply a bacterial/fungus cream on her. Plus, we had given her 8 days of an oral anti-fungal a few weeks ago.

At any rate we are back at home and Keeper is doing well. Whatever she was given to knock her out during the procedure caused her to throw up on the way home. She threw up on Easton and he took it in stride. It’s just been that kind of day!

The total Vet bill for the exam, the lab work, the surgery, and the biopsy came to $231.25. 20160307_190209 The Vet also had some Frontline tick control (which is hard to find here) so we picked up 4 months of that for another $40. The antibiotic I was told to get is Curan (aka Augmentin) suspension 20160307_180456_001 which was $13.80 for a 120 ml bottle. All in all it seems pretty reasonable to me.

 

 

Living in a foreign country without a grasp of the language continues to be a challenge, but between friends who can speak some Spanish and a translator app we seem to always land on our feet! 20160307_180541

Chao.