Free Ranger
Forum Donator 2023/24
I had a piggy that had a growth in his brain. He and his friend were my first pigs as a grown up and it was over 10 years ago now. He was about 4 but as a rescue you never know for sure. The only symptom he had - eventually - was a head tilt which slowly got worse but he was a happy little chap and loved his food. One night he suddenly started to fit, he had about 3 in rapid succession and then I took him to the vets at that point for pts. He wasn't going to get any better.
Neurological problems can take many forms with gradual or sudden worsening in symptoms. The brain controls the whole body, including the digestive tract and all the other organs. Your piggy saw a vet and whether that vet had seen a lot of pigs before or not so many they know so much more about diseases than us... including ailments of all other animal species which they can mentally cross-reference to see if that also fits the presentation they see in front of them. In the UK it's harder to get into vet school than medical school for people doctors so competition is ferocious. Your vet was compassionate enough to realise that there may be a mystery infection that was hidden or pain that wasn't being shown and so gave you your prescription. Although your boy wasn't 'cured' (so his problem was unlikely to be due to pain or bacterial infection alone) he would have been more comfortable than without. It could well be that what turned out to be 'palliative care' in this case was absolutely the right choice. Some of mine have had walloping great doses of both of these meds with no ill effects. Metacam in particular I can say for sure from one little sow on high doses that when we misjudged and went 'over' she looked rough as anything within the hour - hunched and not eating - but was completely fine a few hours later. It works fast and is burned through fast and if you go over for some reason you see it fast and it wears off fast.
Blood tests are very stressful for them unless they are already under anaesthetic which is a risk in itself. Scans are stressful for a sick pig - for ultrasound the belly fur has to be shaved with hair clippers and then a dollop of gel applied which doesn't hurt them but they don't like it. Then they have to be held by one person and manipulated by another. The truth is that sometimes there is nothing we can do whether we know it or not. However, we are evolutionarily wired to keep searching for answers... whether or not there are any to be had. If you imagine how you would have felt if he had been absolutely fine one day and you'd come down the next morning to find he'd died mid-chew with a half-eaten bit of hay still in his mouth you'd still be confused and upset but it wouldn't weigh so heavily. When we nurse them so tenderly it's harder when they go. We give them a piece of our heart so it's bound to hurt when they take it with them
There's a common myth that animals 'know' things but a lot of the time it's how we interpret them. All my Snowflake knew was that her antibiotic (Baytril) tasted foul and she fought like a lion not to have it. 5 days later when her urine infection was clear and she could finally pee without crying she still didn't welcome the miracle that had cured her. When my Louise recently bloated up from (we think) gorging on rich springtime grass it didn't make her pace herself when she got her appetite back, the daft moo. When Ivy didn't eat and kept nosing under big George's back end I thought she was after his caecotrophs so it must be a gut problem. It wasn't - but it was the start of George's impaction and it turned out that she couldn't quite believe what that smell was and kept trying to have a look! But George did know that Ivy was feeling down and they snuggled together in the tunnel right till the end - even if he did stink sometimes.
It is absolutely the life in their days rather than the days in their lives that piggies count, and a pig loved so much must have had a fine life. It's only us people that stress about the 'right' sort of medical intervention. Pigs don't understand what vets are because they've no comprehension of medicine. They don't blame us for what we did or didn't do. They don't hope for cures or expect pain relief or anticipate euthanasia. It's us who make the call and it's often not a clear cut decision. I can tell you, sometimes there just isn't a 'right' choice because both are blimmin' awful - but they don't blame us or think 'why didn't she do that?'. I'm a mum and sometimes when one of my kids has been struggling with a problem and going over and over saying "why, why, why" it's tempting just to pull answers out of the air because, "I don't know" doesn't seem enough. It's tempting to say, 'maybe it was this...' or 'maybe it was that...' but that's not always helpful. We can only play the hand we're dealt the best way we can, and sometimes the cards just aren't good enough. In the future you will be able to look back on this and see how much you have learned about yourself and about grief but right now you are going through the process. It's a hard journey but it does get easier x
Neurological problems can take many forms with gradual or sudden worsening in symptoms. The brain controls the whole body, including the digestive tract and all the other organs. Your piggy saw a vet and whether that vet had seen a lot of pigs before or not so many they know so much more about diseases than us... including ailments of all other animal species which they can mentally cross-reference to see if that also fits the presentation they see in front of them. In the UK it's harder to get into vet school than medical school for people doctors so competition is ferocious. Your vet was compassionate enough to realise that there may be a mystery infection that was hidden or pain that wasn't being shown and so gave you your prescription. Although your boy wasn't 'cured' (so his problem was unlikely to be due to pain or bacterial infection alone) he would have been more comfortable than without. It could well be that what turned out to be 'palliative care' in this case was absolutely the right choice. Some of mine have had walloping great doses of both of these meds with no ill effects. Metacam in particular I can say for sure from one little sow on high doses that when we misjudged and went 'over' she looked rough as anything within the hour - hunched and not eating - but was completely fine a few hours later. It works fast and is burned through fast and if you go over for some reason you see it fast and it wears off fast.
Blood tests are very stressful for them unless they are already under anaesthetic which is a risk in itself. Scans are stressful for a sick pig - for ultrasound the belly fur has to be shaved with hair clippers and then a dollop of gel applied which doesn't hurt them but they don't like it. Then they have to be held by one person and manipulated by another. The truth is that sometimes there is nothing we can do whether we know it or not. However, we are evolutionarily wired to keep searching for answers... whether or not there are any to be had. If you imagine how you would have felt if he had been absolutely fine one day and you'd come down the next morning to find he'd died mid-chew with a half-eaten bit of hay still in his mouth you'd still be confused and upset but it wouldn't weigh so heavily. When we nurse them so tenderly it's harder when they go. We give them a piece of our heart so it's bound to hurt when they take it with them
There's a common myth that animals 'know' things but a lot of the time it's how we interpret them. All my Snowflake knew was that her antibiotic (Baytril) tasted foul and she fought like a lion not to have it. 5 days later when her urine infection was clear and she could finally pee without crying she still didn't welcome the miracle that had cured her. When my Louise recently bloated up from (we think) gorging on rich springtime grass it didn't make her pace herself when she got her appetite back, the daft moo. When Ivy didn't eat and kept nosing under big George's back end I thought she was after his caecotrophs so it must be a gut problem. It wasn't - but it was the start of George's impaction and it turned out that she couldn't quite believe what that smell was and kept trying to have a look! But George did know that Ivy was feeling down and they snuggled together in the tunnel right till the end - even if he did stink sometimes.
It is absolutely the life in their days rather than the days in their lives that piggies count, and a pig loved so much must have had a fine life. It's only us people that stress about the 'right' sort of medical intervention. Pigs don't understand what vets are because they've no comprehension of medicine. They don't blame us for what we did or didn't do. They don't hope for cures or expect pain relief or anticipate euthanasia. It's us who make the call and it's often not a clear cut decision. I can tell you, sometimes there just isn't a 'right' choice because both are blimmin' awful - but they don't blame us or think 'why didn't she do that?'. I'm a mum and sometimes when one of my kids has been struggling with a problem and going over and over saying "why, why, why" it's tempting just to pull answers out of the air because, "I don't know" doesn't seem enough. It's tempting to say, 'maybe it was this...' or 'maybe it was that...' but that's not always helpful. We can only play the hand we're dealt the best way we can, and sometimes the cards just aren't good enough. In the future you will be able to look back on this and see how much you have learned about yourself and about grief but right now you are going through the process. It's a hard journey but it does get easier x