[carolekv]

I took my puppy to the vet today to be spayed and during the pre-op tests, he found that she has a portosystemic shunt. He had sort of suspected this at one point a while ago. Very occasionally in the past, she would wake up in the AM very shaky and woozy. I thought this might be hypoglycemia, so I'd feed her from my hand and then she'd feel better. It stopped happening about 3 months ago, so we thought it was hypoglycemia and was no longer a problem. She just turned a year old a few days ago and has had her first and only heat. She is actually 1/4 lhasa, but you cannot see it at all. She weighs 3.7 lbs but was 1.6 when I first got her. So she has grown, although is still tiny. I have to take her to the local vet school now for the surgery. She is terrified of even going in the car because she thinks she's going to the vet (we do take her other places from time to time) and now she even cries when she sees the car. It upset me more than I could ever show because I adore this little girl. We used to have a policy that we couldn't afford thousands of dollars for a pet if that ever came up and I plainly told my husband (who agreed) that I completely disagree with my own policy now that my girl is sick. Now, speaking of that, she is sick today (they started the anesthesia partially because she was so scared they couldn't do the pre-ops), but before I took her over this AM, and up till now, she is a wild happy little thing - fights with the lhasa we have like a 'linebacker' as my son says. You'd never know, except for those few times a while back, that she had any problem at all. Any words of wisdom, advice, comfort would be greatly appreciated. It seemed like yesterday all was well and now we know this and I am so worried to lose her or for her to have a difficult life.