Gertie Great Dane

Oh my dearest dog Gertie is in the wars. Gertie is an adorable, enormous sook of a great dane. I got her in February as a wee pup so she's almost exactly 7 months. I adore her! She is the dog I have always wanted - in breed and in temperament. In the last month, I noticed she had developed what turned out to be cherry eye. Poor love, nothing major but needed help. So into the vet we went! The vet also noted she had ectropion eye on the other side so it needed surgery as well, not fun for poor dear baby dog. I asked the vet if perhaps whilst she was getting this done, she ought to be spayed at the same time, to save her going through multiple GA's. The vet agreed it was a good idea, and also believed in the idea of gastroplexy for breeds like Gertie. So it turned out she was in for major, multiple surgeries in the end.

I went in the afternoon of her surgery to see how she had fared and she was still groggy, so I spoke with the vet. The eye surgeries went well, though the cherry eye turned out to have cartilage in the way that would not straighten and so needed chopping out :( The rest was straight forward. The vet then went on to absolutely blow my world apart.

She said that because they were doing such a big surgery, they decided to take some bloods to make sure they were covering all bases. The results came back showing what set alarm bells off for the vet - both kidney enzymes were high. She also had anemia. They tested her urine and it was not well diluted, or even in the normal range at all. She said, one she would have written off to anaesthetic effect, but all 4 were not a good sign. It's not certain, but it looks like Gertie has renal disease.

It wasn't for another ten minutes of talking that I started to grasp just how serious this was. It is fatal. She is going to die. Danes don't have a great life span as it is. They average 10-12 years. Not very long compared to smaller breeds. But the vet told me this may be a case of 2-3 years. How is this fair?? My beautiful girl is facing this? And a crappy life quality in the meantime? What the fuck, universe??? In the last 2 years, I have said goodbye to two pets - they had long lives but it still killed me to lose them and now I am facing this again already???

I feel sick about what decisions lay ahead and what this might mean. The next step is to repeat the blood tests and see if they were accurate. They were taken 1h after GA so maybe that threw things? But all 4? Unlikely. But still?? If they are still suspect, we consider biopsies, 3 monthly bloods, diets... but nothing will fix it. It cannot be fixed. Only prolonged.

I am devastated utterly heartbroken. Right now, we just get her recovered from surgery, one thing at a time. It's all we can do right now :(