We were staying in Denton for the weekend when our diabetic American Eskimo, "Buttons" began having seizures. We brought her in on Saturday and they immediately determined that her blood sugar was ex... Read More
We were staying in Denton for the weekend when our diabetic American Eskimo, "Buttons" began having seizures. We brought her in on Saturday and they immediately determined that her blood sugar was extremely low (33). They treated her and got it up, so the seizures stopped, but they found the next morning when they gave her just half her regular dose (reasonable) it plummeted again (unexpected). They managed to get it back to a reasonable range by afternoon, but we were going back to Austin that day and they were still concerned that she could be in danger. The vet was very understanding and thorough in her explanations. She understood that it would be difficult for our whole family (including my parents) to stay in town an extra day so she gave us instructions to follow and what to watch for until we could get Buttons to her regular vet the next morning and promised to fax the details of what they did to our vet.Here is where they lost a couple of stars. Although we really liked the vet herself (Dr. Cavasos) the staff seemed to be lacking. The vet said that they could preserve the catheter so our vet could use it the next day but Buttons would have to wear a "Cone of Shame" (Elizabethan Collar) for the ride home. We said yes to this but when they were preparing her to go home, apparently they let her get to the cath before they got the E-collar on, so we lost the cath. The vet also prepared us a syringe of dextrose solution to be able to give her by mouth if she started to crash on the way home, but somehow that didn't get put into the bag with her other stuff. To her credit, the vet called us a couple of hours later (we were about halfway home) when she found the dextrose still in the back and gave us advise to get some Karo syrup or sugar solution to have on hand to give if she started showing signs of crashing again so we stopped at a convenience store for that. Also, they didn't ask us for any of her regular food when she was with them. This resulted in them giving her a different food from what she's used to and this invariably leads to diarrhea in Buttons. There is not much worse than a dog with long white hair having diarrhea, unless it's having to hold said dog in your lap on a 4 hour car ride.What really caused problems though was that they did not get the information faxed to my vet in spite of multiple calls from me, her staff and finally my vet herself asking for the information. It wasn't faxed until 11:00am the next day (Monday) although they said they would fax it right away when we left at 5:00pm Sunday and they were in the office all night (being an emergency vet). I asked about it when the vet called on our way home about the dextrose and she said she'd make sure it went, then my vet's staff called again before they closed Sunday, I called at 7:00am Monday morning and my vet's staff also called that morning and then I called again when I got Buttons to their office at 7:30am and it still wasn't there. Finally my vet herself called, but by that time they had closed for the day (Denton County is an Emergency vet only open weekends and nights) so she had to go through all sorts of hoops to actually talk to a human. This led to my vet not being able to give any insulin Monday when we took her in for her glucose curve. Now her blood sugar is sitting at over 400 but we can't give her any insulin until tomorrow morning because they have to monitor her for 12 hours after it's given. My vet NEEDED the numbers of how much insulin they gave and how far it caused her blood sugar to drop and how long it took to get it back up because it was a dangerous low she went through and they didn't want to induce it again.When I started this review, I didn't know they hadn't faxed the information and that as a result, nothing useful happened today and Buttons might as well have been at home letting her glucose go through the roof (except that at least my vet was able to monitor her). I was going to give 4 stars, only losing one due to the cath, dextrose and diarrhea problems, but after hearing the frustration from my vet over the fact that she was prevented from following her plan for today, I'm tempted to only give 1 star. Only the fact that Dr. Cavasos was so helpful earned them two. Read Less