Indy getting some acupuncture. Can you see all the needles down his back? The ones on his arm are to try and make his scar look better 🙂
Big day in the Indy world. Today we did a full body ultrasound to image all of his organs. The last time he was checked out was last October when they did his emergency surgery. Actually, that day they did the ultrasound and checked his organs, but then later he was totally opened up in surgery and they got an even better view of everything. Anyway, being 6 months out from that fun event, we wanted to get him back in.
Why do we image him every 6 months? We are hoping to get lucky and catch something before it is a big deal. Something like hemangiosarcoma, which is sadly becoming more common in our breed. The Vizsla heatlh survey in 2008 found that the average age of onset for affected animals was 9 years of age. So since he turned 7, we’ve been doing the ultrasounds.
Hemangio is almost always malignant and while it spreads rapidly, it develops slowly. This means that if you can catch it early, you might be able to get to it before it metastasizes. So that’s why we do it…kinda a crap shoot, but we are happy to spend the money in case it pays off.
After his ultrasound — we got the all clear — he went to see Dr. Grillo for some acupuncture. Indy has shown so much improvement since he started getting regular acupuncture the past winter. And in just a month, our old man will be 11! Just don’t know how the time is flying so quickly! But for now, we are just ecstatic to be leaving the Vet with an A+ on his health record 🙂