Bishop going in for surgery ~ 7-14-11

Does that look like a dog that is sick?

We discovered Bishop had a kidney stone that was causing quite a bit of havoc on his kidney so we decided surgery was his best course of treatment. Two weeks ago I took a trip to the vet's office only to learn the office had written down the wrong date for Bishop's surgery. So, today I took Bishop up to the vet's office to remove his kidney stone . When I checked him in I was filling out paperwork that asked if I wanted him to have a heartworm test. I asked the vet technician if he had a heartworm test on his last visit. Much to my surprise she said yes and he had a "strong positive." Ummm, excuse me. And then she went on to say by the looks of the notes on the chart that the vet discussed the outcome of the test with Michael. After some discussion, not so pleasant I might add, and a phone call to Michael I once again left with my dog and children to return home. In tears I pull up and asked Michael what were we supposed to do now. We waited on a phone call from the vet to discuss our options and he apologized for us not knowing the results. Michael and I decided to go further with the surgery to remove the stones and to re-evaluate the heartworm situation after a few months of being on heartworm medicine.


He stayed at the vet office for the night and came home the next day. While he wasn't moving very quickly I knew he wasn't in as much pain as he had been in. Of course the next thought was to wondering how many heartworms he had and if we had been a little more diligent about heartworm prevention if he would not have gotten them.

Bishop was a Christmas present to Michael when we had been dating almost a year. He was born November 9th, 2000. We are hoping to have many more years with him. Now that Oliver has passed it was especially difficult to hear that something is wrong with Bishop. Unfortunately we can't change the diagnosis, but we can focus on trying to make him better and live a long and healthy rest of his life.