Dear Corie, I read your post with great interest and anguish, and I truly appreciate your sharing your story to help others identify intusseption. We lost or 4 1/2 year old male, Tonka, just before Thanksgiving to an intestinal blockage, and your tale of the emergency hospital sounded so similar to ours. For 3 days the emergency vet thought our guy was suffering from pancreatitis, since his symptoms were elevated heart rate, vomiting, high white and red cell counts, and high levels of some enzymes in the blood. After we found him vomiting clear slime, we immediately brought him there thinking 1) he was bloating or 2) he had an intestinal blockage, which had happened before. Xrays showed nothing, and after they ruled out bloat, we followed the vet's advice and treated him with fluids and antibiotics, and prayed for improvement.
After 3 days without improvement, they finally suggested doing an ultrasound and possibly endoscopy. Apparently these tests have a better chance of finding a blockage than an xray. The ultrasound was only $250 and it confirmed an intestinal blockage. We had surgery done but unfortunately our guy arrested as he was coming out of the operation. It was heartbreaking. The positive "learning" experience we took away from this is 1) to trust our gut....we suspected the blockage but allowed ourselves to get sidetracked on the pancreatitis thing and 2) now we know that ultrasound and endoscopy are available. If there is a next time, we will push for those tests right away. I believe if Tonka had been correctly diagnosed even 1 day earlier, he might have survived the surgery. I just wanted to share this with the list, so that you all know that there are better diagnostics than xrays to find blockages. We learned the hard way. Kim Touzeau
