rev:text
| - If your dog needs surgery or you have an emergency, skip Coddle Creek and go straight to Carolina Vet Specialists. My family has gone to Coddle Creek since the year it opened with two dogs. Bottom line - they are great for checkups, minor illness, and well-visits, but terrible for surgery and emergencies. About six years ago, we pointed out a tumor on our (indoor) dogs hind leg days at-most a week or two after it appeared. They specifically told us it was a "pocket of fluid." Questions about cancer and biopsy were treated as if our family was being overly concerned, borderline paranoid. They told us this a few times more until we stopped worrying. SIX YEARS years later, at a standard checkup, we find ourselves rushing our dog into emergency surgery to remove the same tumor as it was now deemed cancerous when for the past 5+ years it wasn't even worth biopsy.
What ensued was a surgery with the worst planning and wound management one could imagine. Our beloved dog endured 5+ weeks of his incision ripping open weekly while on a barrage of medication and on bed rest with 24/7 supervision. The incision was made horizontally across his large muscles on the hind legs, rather than vertically to dissipate stress on the skin. We have a MD and RN in our family who both confirmed this should've never been cut horizontally. Furthermore, they used staples to close the wound. We had to return 5+ times - where staples were haphazardly placed outside of anesthesia. In the end, they gave up. $2000 and a second major surgery later, Carolina Vet Specialist fixed the situation by making vertical incisions which managed the stress on the wound and six weeks later our dog finally began day 1 of healing.
Six months later we returned with a new emergency.After about $500 and two days of observation at Coddle Creek we left without a single answer. It would take between $600-1000 to get those answers. For $100 and about 30 minutes of their time - Carolina Vet Specialist confirmed our worst nightmare. The cancer that had been lingering in our dogs leg for six years had metastasized to the spleen and it had ruptured, causing internal bleeding. We put our dog down two days ago and will forever regret not getting a second opinion six years ago.
|