As life would have it, as I was recovering from my gallbladder incident, Bentley last week started displaying some oro-facial pain. Immediately, I flashed back to a year ago (also in April) when his dual auto-immune diseases came on out of no where. Some of the key symptoms back then included lip smacking, drooling, and crying when I touched his face.

I immediately scheduled an appointment with the specialist, and the next day, she did the full physical. Of course, this would all happen during COVID, so I was prohibited from going inside with him… Long story short, the doctor noticed ZERO sensitivity in his jaws/face. At the time, he also had diarrhea so she suggested an ultrasound as a check on his GI. Ok, whatever. Ultra came back normal, and the full blood panel came back normal the next day.

Of course, as soon as we got home though, he had the face sensitivity again. Then, I grew obsessed. Was it one side? Was it the teeth, the jaw, the face muscles? I went into full-blown OCD mode. I called the doctor back, and she just kept insisting that she did a thorough exam and palpated everything, blah, blah. Jesus Christ. I’m not questioning the thoroughness of your physical exam. I’m telling you that he has face pain now. Ugh!

From the beginning, I’ve had problems dealing with this doctor. She doesn’t like to be questioned, and she’s super condescending… every time I want to discuss anything, she reacts all impatiently with, “Well, like I thought we discussed yesterday…” or “like I said before…” Look lady, I’m not a DVM, but I’m not retarded. I have a brain, I research things, and I’m super attuned to my dog. I’m telling you there is facial pain. And if your treatment plan is just always going to be $1,000 joint taps, walk me through your rational bc it doesn’t make total sense for me and maybe let’s come up with some other options! A few more days going back and forth (my main argument is that the joint taps test for the immune-mediated poly arthritis. But his face pain last time was due to the immune-mediated myositis. Yes, both diseases presented at the same time last year, but if it’s possible that the myositis relapses without the arthritis, then doing the joint tap doesn’t tell you anything!) and then I schedule another appointment, for a full mouth/throat check under sedation.

Meanwhile, it seems like the face pain is spreading to both sides of the head. Friday rolls around, he’s fasted, and I drive him down for the procedure. While waiting for the tech to come get him in the parking lot, I feel around his face again, and there is low to zero sensitivity again. WTF?

So then, I tell the tech he’s not recoiling or crying or anything. I cancel the appointment and decide to monitor through the weekend. Now all week long, there’s been some on- and off- sensitivity, but he’s back to eating kibble and chewing things and playing with his ball. In one of our conversations with the vet, I asked what other things could cause oro-facial pain, and even then, she wouldn’t say. I swear, communicating with her is so damn cumbersome.

For the past year, I just sucked it up. There are only a handful of internal medicine specialists in our area, and this team did get Bentley well. So, I just made the decision as Bentley’s advocate to endure her bitchy attitude and continue unfazed with my questions. But then last week, I had had enough. Does every interaction have to be this fucking unpleasant?

So I called her vet tech, who has been serving as a middle man anyway, and asked her if there was something about the way I was communicating that offended the doctor? Like why am I getting so much attitude and pushback? Turns out, the vet is like that with everyone, including her own staff! Thankfully, in this past week, Bentley seems ok, so I gained some room to breathe again, but I will be speaking with the clinic to discuss options moving forward.