…Oh, and would a kind admin, if you have time, please fix my stupid typo on the post title. I’d really appreciate it. I’m really not as illiterate as I appear.

Thank you, Annette! ^_^

Thank you everyone for your kind words and vibes. I’m afraid I’ve not gotten the greatest sleep last night, so my post is most likely going to sound like a lot of useless gibberish. My apologies in advance.
Even last night when we called the vet to check on him, Doctor seemed to be impressed at how well he was doing. This morning we got a progress report that he is actually up and alert and if he keeps food down, he could even come home tonight. But we think it would be best to have them watch him tonight and maybe tomorrow also (yes holiday hours, but someone will be there to check all the pets there) just to be sure he has no further heart trouble. I could not possibly go through another banzai run like that with the risk of him collapsing and dying if he relapses.

TARM, there is something that can be done to preempt any possibility of torsion, Jerz has seen it as you can tell by her post…you have the gastropexy (tacking the stomach tot he abdominal wall) done in any dog suspect of getting bloat BEFORE it happens. It is about an $800 operation if you have it done in advance. I’m certainly looking into the thousands for the ER team. I meant to have this done once I was sure Shadow was well enough to be outdoors again, but with his gimpy legs and how mercurial the weather has been, I just didn’t feel he was ready yet. Now he’ll have no choice, as Taiku is going to be housebound for about two weeks easily. Luckily we have a nice enclosed porch (where Taiku was living-so they just switch places) that he is perfectly happy staying in.

If you Google GDV, you’ll find tons of information on the condition. Sadly they cannot be certain of it’s cause. Some say heredity, some not, some say feeding or exercise. Some say lack of gut motility (imagine that) keeps food from digesting (especially today’s crummy commercial dog foods) and it just ferments in their stomachs and starts the gas buildup…then the stomach swells so much that it begins to turn on itself. It twists like a bag with two open ends closed off. or like how you’d wring out a wet towel. and takes all the local blood vessels with it, causing the respiratory and circulatory distress…and as it progresses, the toxins in the stomach go straight into the bloodstream as the stomach lining irritates or perforates and sepsis shuts down their organs. It’s a terrible thing. I’m shaking just thinking of it.

Anyway, I am dubious of bringing Taiku home too soon. I also see a 50/50 spread that some say the gastropexy is a cure for the torsion, some information says there’s a chance it will fail. I’d like him to be at the doctor’s if for some odd reason it should fail. There is precious little you can do to keep your dog from bloating again, no cure for that. But I think Taiku (like Shadow) will be on a diet of Gas-X or Phazyme for the rest of his life…my personal choice for being sure there is not enough gas to pump that stomach up again.

Yeah, it’s been a rough 24 hours. This has the whole family stressed out and, whereas things had seemed to be going a little better for us all relationship-wise to each other lately…well now that’s kind of all been blown out of the water. I’ve got a busy week coming up too; both kids are taking several tests one day after the other to finish with their GED’s plus the cancer relay is Friday night…OY!

And I just read the post from Spacehopper in Support about Bettie Bean. *sniffle* So now I’m a blubbering mess again. I swear, I’m going to hunt down the grim reaper or the black rabbit or whoever the bugger is this week and I’m going to beat the snot out of him for making life so miserable for all of us lately.

Well the goofball came home today, finally! ^_^ We left him at the vet’s over the holiday weekend and I was expecting the bill to be huge, but thankfully it was not as bad as Shadow’s was. (I forgot that Shadow had to go in late at night, therefore after hours charges applied, but Taiku was in about noon.)
I read through the surgical manifest which we received with the billing. I had to look up a few words, as I realized that I was mispronouncing the heart condition Taiku had, he was actually in “ventricular tachycardia”, which can quickly lead to sudden cardiac death. I have to surmise that he was clinically ‘dead’ in the car for about the last five minutes of the ride in. But the dog that greeted me at the vet office today was anything but!! His turn around is nothing less than miraculous. The hand of God folks…whether you’re religious or not, I hope you don’t mind me saying it. And I couldn’t be happier, nor any less amazed, about it! ^_^

He even pulled my husband around the parking lot looking for places to do his business while they waited for me to get his bill settled and the meds he’d need for recovery. No painkillers, for some reason he seems not to need them. (whoa!) I know I shouldn’t bag on him about his intelligence quotient, but perhaps he’s just too clueless to know he was dead? xD
Sorry, dark humor…but I really had such a scare that I keep having to equivocate. God forbid I ever go through anything like that with the bunnies, it will total me. 0_o

So while I was going over the whole thing in my head it occurred to me…this dog is not your typical car riding dog, (unlike his dad), in fact he gets queasy in the car. So most likely it was the stress of the car ride that actually pushed him over the edge medically. His stomach was only rotated 90 degrees (in torsion it can go a full 360) and it pinked right up when they reset it. So he really wasn’t to the point that his heart should have stopped. Judging by the way his chest looked (very ballooned out) his stomach went sideways, while Shadow’s stomach went longways. Less stress on the heart in Shadow’s case.

Either way, he is a very lucky dog. Any time we continue to have with him is beautiful time. The only sad thing is to see how it has affected my son, who does not deal with stress well either. I think he’s almost afraid to show Taiku any affection, as he just doesn’t know when something else will go wrong and you can see he doesn’t feel the need to experience the hurt. I am sad for him and wish I’d raised him better than that.

And I owe my vet techs/docs a few Starbucks gift cards! (I did that for Shadow’s attendings, and I think we are probably on their Xmas card list by now!) lolz!

Thank you all again for your good thoughts and prayers. And thank you Julie, for correcting my typo, I forgot to say that earlier.

Well I had my heart racing for a bit this morning, as I had to take him out for a walk and he stumbled down the front steps. *foreheadsmack* I forgot they can’t really take stairs for the first week and I spent the next few hours watching him like a hawk to be sure we hadn’t ripped anything open. >.< Walking and feeding them is a real juggling act…we can't keep Taiku in the house because he actually gets very restless in here and I need to keep him calm. So he's out in the arctic entry with his papa, who is keeping him company instead of wrestling with him, which is a blessing in itself.
*sigh* Ice cream…maybe not for me now that my long walks have been canceled for an indeterminate amount of time…my opiate of choice lately has been to gorge on fresh cherries and these lovely little Kashi bars called “TLC”. The dark chocolate and coconut ones are the best. *nomnomnom*
And of course hubby is out of town again, so I am by myself with the two teens who are both dead to the world. I feel *sniffle* SO alone! *cries*