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TIFU by euthanizing my dog and not getting a second opinion

Looking for some advice and not ready to start pointing fingers yet.

I took my dog to an emergency vet about 20-30 min after he was exhibiting signs of bloating. When we get there they notice he’s a bit unstable and rush him to the back to “stabilize” him. 20 min later the vet comes out and tells me he’s exhibiting signs of bloating and recommended I do a few different scans throughout his body so they can confirm and rush him to surgery. After asking some questions I decided the other scans weren’t immediately necessary and ask her to just do the scan on his belly to check if he’s bloated and if it had already turned into GDV which I guess means the stomach had already turned and he needs emergency surgery instead of decompression and an IV. The vet leaves again for another 20 minutes and comes back and confirms it’s GDV and starts trying to show me a picture of the scan on her phone…. She tells me he will die in 2-3 hours if he’s not immediately cut open and has his stomach turned back to normal. She then proceeds to tell me that due to his age (13) as a bigger dog who previously had surgery for something unrelated, there’s a low chance of him surviving the surgery and even if he does survive the surgery there’s a higher chance he will die during recovery. She recommends I euthanize him and put him out of his misery. I could hear my dog from the waiting room still crying even though he was “stabilized” and under medication/sedation. I make the hard decision to put the absolute love of my life down and let him finally rest. He was also suffering from tumors and had a surgery Q2 of this year. His hips were also bad and he had another tumor that grew which I felt didn’t show any signs of progressing so it could’ve been benign.

Edit: I did tell this vet I was willing to get the surgery for him and there was no one at this “specialized” hospital who could perform it. I was told I had to “get all the scans at this current hospital before taking him to a further one” just seemed like a money grab. I was also told there was a chance he would die on the way to the other hospital.

After staying up and crying the entire night and morning I finally got some rest and was starting to tell myself it was the best decision for him.

Then I got a call from a corporate supervisor or something with the company. Turns out the vet misread the scan. She wasn’t supposed to make that call or even recommend euthanasia. They have a policy in place where she should’ve asked a specialist to read the scan and if there was no specialist she uploads it to the system and waits for one of their on call specialist to send back their reading.

We spoke for quite a while and she tried to convince me it was an honest mistake and that maybe the vet was tired… it was like 8-9 pm when I got there with my dog…

I hang up and tell her I’ll speak to her another day. We get on the phone again and after trying to explain to me that this had never happened to them and that their vets are really professional she offers me a refund for the emergency visit but I have to sign an NDA saying I won’t go to the media or sue them in any way.

I speak with an attorney who tells me in my state dogs are considered property so there aren’t much gains in a lawsuit claiming emotional distress. She tells me there are people currently fighting to overturn that law so vets have more of an urgency to make the right calls for our pets.

After reading the NDA and seeing how it was worded as if they were doing me a favor I’m determined to do as much damage to this company as possible and even report this vet to a professional board.

Anyone who can forward me some info on the right way to do this I would highly appreciate it. I know this will be costly but my dog is 100% worth it and if this prevents this insane heartbreak from happening to anyone else I’d consider this a huge win

TLDR

😢😢😢

I miss you so much bud and I’m so sorry I fucked up like this. I fucking should’ve known better and trusted my gut.

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