A huge THANK YOU to all of you who have sent well wishes and prayers for Murphy. The poor pug has had a rough few days, so we really appreciate it.
Ok, let me back up a little and give you guys the whole story…
Back in January, Murphy had an ear infection and then some hearing loss. We tried approximately, oh, a million different medications to cure it with no luck. We finally saw a specialist at the local VCA, who prescribed him some new meds that seemed to work. Hooray! Murphy seemed so much better. But, last week, we took him for a check-up just to make sure things were 100%. Unfortunately, they were not, so Murphy was prescribed another new drug and, a couple of days later, everything went to sh*t. He ended up with vestibular disease, which messed up his balance and coordination and gave him a permanent head tilt.
With the long holiday weekend, we couldn’t get him an appointment with his usual vet until Tuesday evening. It was only a consult, so his vet couldn’t do anything for him then, but she scheduled a CT scan for the next day (yesterday). She thought maybe a tumor/mass might be causing all of Murphy’s ear issues since none of the previous treatments seemed to make any difference and things were just getting worse and worse.
After the CT scan, I received a call from the vet and she said everything looked great””no tumor, no mass””so she’d continue on with our plan, which was giving Murphy’s ear a deep “cleaning.” Basically, she would get all of the gunk (i.e. pus, bacteria) out of his ear and then take cultures to figure out what was the cause of the infection. Well, once the vet started the deep cleaning, she found a tumor/mass inside Murphy’s ear canal. Whomp whomp. She didn’t want to keep him under anesthesia longer than needed, so she scheduled a surgery to remove it next week.
So, that’s where we are now. Murphy seemed okay after the procedure””just tired and kind of out of it, which we assumed was from the anesthesia””but we had a rough night after that. He wouldn’t eat or sleep and he would periodically yelp in pain, which, of course, woke up Mal and me in a panic. We absolutely hate seeing Murphy in pain, especially when we can’t do much about it. We feel so helpless and it totally breaks our hearts. Murphy is on pain and anti-nausea meds now, but they make him so mopey and out of it. Ugh. Guys, I hate seeing him like this. I just want him to be well again.
We’re counting down the days until next Tuesday when he has his surgery, and we really hope everything goes according to plan. Please keep the little furball in your prayers.