I'm sorry to say that though I once respected and held this vet hospital in high acclaim, I no longer do. Several months ago I brought my dog in for X-rays because I noticed she was not putting weight on one of her back legs. Dr. Shields had performed 2 TPLO surgeries within the last five years on both of her back legs. I brought her to Advanced months before getting these x-rays. She would be sedated, since they were taking 3 different x-ray views; her spine, knee and hips. The x-rays showed some degeneration of our dog's spine but other than that, nothing 'alarming.' Physical therapy was suggested and we signed up for that at once. In the days to follow Luna's x-ray visit, we noticed that her stability was worse than when we brought her in. I called Advanced and asked if anything out of the ordinary may have happened while x-raying her and Dr. Sheilds reported to me that she was in the room with the technicians and nothing out of the ordinary took place.
Luna, a young 10 yr, went to physical therapy 2 times per week, and had acupuncture to try and heal and strengthen 'the muscles around the spine." After over 2 months, we saw very little improvement from the PT and wanted to get to the bottom of things, so we made an appointment for an ultra sound. We wanted to rule out anything possibly pressing on her spine internally.
In the early morning on the day we were scheduled to take Luna to her ultra sound appointment, we found Luna in her bed, unable to pick herself up. She couldn't stand and was listless. We brought water to her, as she was fasting for the ultra sound.
I immediately called Advanced and spoke with a very insensitive, rude associate, Frankie, whom I told I was cancelling our ultra sound appointment but still needed to bring Luna in because something is very wrong. He told me, "we'll decide if she gets the ultra sound when we see her." And I told him, no, you won't. I'm cancelling the appointment because she can't stand up...at all. He then changed his tone, said I could bring her in as an emergency client and asked when we will be coming in and I said I would come at the same time as the ultra sound, 10 am.
We live 35 minutes from the hospital and when we got there, we spoke with Matt, who said there was confusion about our appointment and asked if we were there for the ultra sound appointment. which was unsettling to us, since we were very clear about what was happening. They told us we'd have to wait and we said no problem, we would.
About 20 minutes later after I called them to inquire about Luna needing to go to the bathroom since she hadn't in the morning and if she did, could someone please help us and they said Matt was coming out to speak to us. He came out and told us they can't see us and that he spoke to all the doctors and they all said it would be better for us to go to Ventura, which is an hour away from Advanced. Matt was pretty detached about the situation and we were pretty surprised that the doctor who performed the surgeries on our dog was now saying she was too busy to see our dog and sent us away. I asked Matt if they were turning others away he said they were turning lots of people away.
I wish that was the worst of it, but it was not. We took Luna, thank goodness in the end, to Ventura Emergency Hospital, where they took her right away and later learned from prior reports,that during the x-ray she had at Advanced, she had a fever of 103, which is definitely cause for some investigation. We were never told about her fever and when Luna was admitted to Ventura Hosp. she had a high fever again. It kept rising.
Luna wound up having over 105 fever. She was in ICU in the hospital for a week. And thankfully, to the amazing surgeon, Dr. Simpson and all the doctors and aids there, they found out that Luna had a severe infection in front of and in back of the her knee, where the plate was, inserted by the surgeon at AVS, who wouldn't see us in an emergency.
In fact, the screws in the plate were loose and there was no bone attached to the plate. Thank goodness we opted to get an ultra sound on her knee and that the doctors were so on top of it that they did everything to find out what was going on with our sweet Luna.
Dr. Simpson (Ventura Emergency Hospital) performed surgery, removing the plate and infection and slowly, Luna's fever started coming down. Did I mention that Dr. Simpson called us to speak with us during her day off, while Luna was still in the hospital? This...is not only a very highly qualified doctor but also a caring one. No follow up from Advanced to see how Luna was doing.
Antibiotics were given at the Ventura emergency hospital and helped greatly, her fever kept going down and we were finally able to take Luna home. It has been over a month now, and Luna is still not able to walk fully on that leg, but we are working with her and she is improving. As importantly, her sweet loving spirit has returned and we are very grateful. read more