Apollo Update
He was no better. If anything else, he seemed to have gotten even worse. He has gone onto the ventilator to give his respiratory muscles some rest and he was also getting poor tissue perfusion (Sp02 was in the 80s). Infusions of plasma and anti-venom is insidiously slow as he kept having anaphylactic reactions even at snail rates. When the on duty nurse handed over this morning, she wasn't kidding when she said: " welcome to hell ". I learnt that this delayed relapse of snake bite effects can be avoided when you give plentiful anti-venom right at the start. Usually, a total of 4 vials was inscribed in the AEC protocol 3 years ago. However, it has since changed and they have seen an increase in dogs who relapse. Presently, they only transfuse 2 vials of anti-venom before waiting and seeing. The protocol was changed in an attempt to bring down cost fees. However, the changed has resulted in insufficient anti-venom to bind to the snake toxins. In addition, there has been re-release of bound toxins from the muscles. There was extensive muscle break down when I checked on Apollo. He was also passing blood red urine except it wasn't broken down red blood cells in his blood (haemoglobin) but myglobin(by-product of muscle lysis). In future, if it's up to me, hell yeah I'm giving all 4 vials of anti-venom. That would only be an extra cost of $1800 compared to the excess of over $8000 bill for Apollo. And that is not including the anaesthesia and mechanical ventilator he is now on..... The animal suffers the most at the end of the day....
