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Please keep my family and our dear Shadow in your prayers/healing vibe circles tonight. We had to rush him into the ER at 9 PM tonight because he was presenting with symptoms that mocked poisoning. When we got him there, it turned out his stomach had bloated and it was twisting into a knot. (I think it’s called ileus in horses, right?) We were lucky to see it as it started and I got the hubby to drive us in (snow storm for tonight and tomorrow-and we have to take the bunneis in first thing) and they did the surgery right away. We just got home an hour ago. We were blessed to have caught it before any serious damage was done, but he is 14 and this is his second surgery in as many months.
Shadow is in recovery and appears to be doing well. There were remnants of a tennis ball in his stomach.
I feel so bad, they must’ve been in there since he came home from the hospital over two months ago. He’d had a few doggie tennis balls to play with that he just tore open and we thought we’d found all the pieces. Apparently not.They sewed his stomach to a muscle in his side to keep it from twisting again. But my poor baby, it was a rough ride in for 30 miles. He was in enough agony to snap at me for the first time in his life. I didn’t think he was going to make it.
God had His hand on us. That is all I can say.
Thank you for thinknig of us and keeping us close to your hearts. I’ll post more as I know more. (Shadow is in the hospital overnight and maybe another day as well…the doc is with him all night tonight and she gets to see my happy mug first thing at 10 am! Joy! I better go get some sleep!)
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Thank you everyone for all your good wishes and prayers.
Today we took the other two buns in for their nail trims and, except for Pip being a bit overweight-which I already knew, they both passed with flying colors. Dr. does not see any reason to put anything stronger than Neosporin on Fiver’s heels and she’d like to see Pip get more exercise (so would I.)
After their appointments, we were escorted back to where Shadow was resting in his hospital pen. He still has quite a bit of pain med in him, so he was very goopy around the eyes and glazed over, I am not even sure he knew we were there. But they are weaning him off that today and will probably keep him overnight tonight (we do have a major snowstorm still raging-winter warnings everywhere) and he may be able to come home tomorrow.LilysMama, I should’ve been more precise. Shadow is my 14 year old MacKenzie River Husky, who just had surgery in January to remove several masses that were in his ear, cheek and chest. We are assuming he may have cancer, but he was doing so well and back to his old self here in these last weeks, walking longer distances and showing his old P&V again.
Last night’s events are already fading in my over-strained memory, but I’ll try to recount them.
Last night, I fed him his usual meal of watered down dry food and had already successfully taken him on his first long walk of the day about 3-4 PM, and since he’s been keeping the hubby up quite a bit at night, I decided he was going on a walk right after dinner about 8:30 PM.
Odd thing was, I wasn’t feeling well myself. I was nauseous and my head felt funny and when I went out to get Shadow up, he wasn’t having any of it. I thought he was just trying to sleep when he wasn’t supposed to be, so I made him get up. But I didn’t feel like walking.While we’re walking down the road, I can’t shake this bad feeling. He was doing fine the whole time, until we turned to come back in the driveway. Then suddenly, his tail and head went down, he arched his back and seemed to slow up and walk in a staggered motion.
Of course the first thing I think is, Good Lord, he’s sick…he’s been poisoned somehow. I watched his daughter go this way. My heart sank.I brought him back in the house, had to walk Taiku also, so I went out to get him, leaving Shadow with my son to watch. But I can’t get this awful feeling that the black rabbit (or something like) is hovering. So I took Taiku back quickly and went to check Shadow myself.
When I get back inside I can see he’s begun pacing and crying and almost gagging. My son and I thought he had something stuck in his throat, so we called my husband to get him home from work and started trying Heimlich and putting our hands down his throat to see if there was something blocking his airway. There was nothing there. Shadow would calm down, then start pacing and crying again. It was looking more like poisoning and I was getting more upset by the minute.
I think I must’ve taken him outside and back indoors at least three more times as he seemed to want to be outdoors, and I was hoping against hope that it was just something he’d eaten (little did I know) that hadn’t agreed with him, no more serious than that. He would be fine outside for awhile. However each time I brought him back in, he started the arching behavior again and he was getting frantic by the time the hubby got home. He also took Shadow out, walking him up and down the road, thinking he had some kind of blockage. I also worried that maybe he was going into heart failure. When I felt Shadow’s chest, his heart seemed to be running a crazy beat.
I called three vets looking for someone to take him in. No one was on call that evening (not even the ER) except for: Mimzy’s new vet. Coincidence? I think not.
I ran down the road and called the husband to help him pile Shadow into the car and we were off. Poor thing, he was in terrible pain the whole way, (we have a totally crappy road for 35 miles and it was slick as heck) and just as we got to town (40 minutes later) he snapped at me. He has never done that before. He was trying hard not to, but I brushed my hand on his stomach. Big mistake. He did not bite me, but he definitely let me know, don’t touch!
We get to the vet office and he is actually able to walk into the surgery, but he’s all hunched again. The vet does a quick feel over and says she feels something like a mass in his abdomen. Our hearts fall. This is it, we both think. We are going home with just a leash and a memory.She takes some radiographs and that’s when she sees the whole chest/abdominal cavity is the expanded stomach, full of air and gas. The mass she felt is his spleen, which has been displaced by the twisted, engorged stomach. She tells us he needs emergency surgery to save his life. Of course, we consent.
While she’s hunting up the paperwork for consent to treatment, she offhandedly asks, seeing we are worried sick about him, do we need to see an estimate? Not at all. He is our baby. Save him. No further discussion of payment is made. (In fact today she told us all can be settled when we take him home, including today’s fees for the bunnies. I am stunned. No way our old vet would’ve done this, especially if she had to sit up with him all night. But that’s in the past.)
So we help her get him on a table so they can prep him and I have to keep a hand on him so she can stick him a few times (CBC, IV, painkiller)…not so much as a peep out of him. He is licking my husband’s hands as if to say, “Thank you…it hurt so much and now I am feeling better a bit, thank you.”So we help the tech and doc get him to the surgery table, another doc arrives and they tell us to go get a coffee and come back, we can wait in the lobby, it’ll be about an hour that he’s in surgery. We do this.
There was the most beautiful poem in the lobby, underneath is the Rainbow Bridge poem. I just read the one that pleads for mercy on the animals. I can’t stop crying.
Dr. comes in while I am blowing my nose. She tells me his bloodwork looks really good. No sign that this has been going on long. He should be fine once they get his insides sorted. His gums don’t look as pale as they were when we first came in. He has a good chance.So hubby and I sit and wait. Longest hour and a half of my life.
When the tech finally comes in to tell us how he’s come through, she is holding a mini ziploc with bloodied pieces of a torn tennis ball. Not the kind you play with on court, the kind they make for dogs-with the paw prints on them. This was what they found, there was no bone (which they originally thought was showing on the xray) and no perforations of the innards. I am completely floored. I had given him those tennis balls to play with when he first came home from hospital in January. How on earth could it have been in his stomach all this time and not cause trouble? Or are there more of those pieces lying about somewhere and I missed cleaning them up?
I gave him something I knew he loved to play with and it almost killed him.
The Dr. finally came out and told us he was on the way to waking up and we could see him soon. His stomach had just been turning purple when they got inside and it was already looking more normal color as they straightened it out. A bloat situation like this is almost always fatal. I am convinced only divine intervention guiding the hands of the most wonderful and caring surgeons could’ve saved him.
But we thanked her and went back to see him when she called us. He was still heavily out and we knew we had to leave him for the night, but Dr. said she would stay with him all night and see us at 10 this morning with the bunnies. Holy cow. 0_o What compassion and dedication!
I know this is going to sound crazy and silly…but wow…I have to ask myself…
Can it be, with Mimzy being sick and my husband going off the road that day-causing us to miss our other vet’s appointment, which made me call this new doctor; could it all have been leading to the possibly one person in town who could save Shadow’s life in a pinch?Of course, he’s not out of the woods yet…but I am praying he strengthens up again and we have more spared moments with him. For now I thank God he’s alive and it wasn’t what we originally thought.
Please, share my joy! ^_^ -
Oh Jerz, that was one of the sad things…here his coat is starting to just get fuzzy in length again (he still looks like the pic I posted after that surgery) and they had to shave off leg fur again to get the IV in and such.
I felt so sorry for him, but hey, at least it wasn’t the whole bod this time! I may have been a bit premature in celebrating just yet. The doc called from the hospital tonight (different doc this time) and said he’d had some arrhythmia today and he was still kind of retching as he came off the morphine they gave him for the pain. He may need to remain at the hospital for even a few more days, depending on his recovery. Since he’s an old dog, the new doc’s tone was guarded.
So he’s going to need some serious TLC to come out of this, but tonight they will not be with him the whole time…so it’s all I can do to take my own advice to rabbitpam and try to send calming vibes to my poor boy. I just feel he’s in pain. I am going to have a time sleeping, despite how exhausted I am right now.
I also looked up what he has…sorry I was confusing ileus (stasis) with GDV, which I’ll add a link to below.
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+1571&aid=402This is going to be a lifelong condition with him now. I am not sure that, if he ever has another episode, that he will be able to withstand it. I do not think that I could put him through another surgery.
If I could just ask for a few more prayers. Thank you all so much.
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You guys are the absolute best! *sniffle* Thank you so much for all your support.
We have got the most epic public forum members here! ^_^ (((((((((((((hugs Binky Clan)))))))))))))
FREEEDOMMMMM!!!!!
*blush* Whoops…wrong clan…ehe…lol.I think we got a call early this morning that he still haging in there, but the hubby took it and he is currently out in the driveway trying to scoop out a flat to drive on out of the, oh…foot and half of snow that fell since the other night when we drove in? 0_o It is blowing like stink out there too…yeesh!
When I can finally communicate with him again, I’ll let y’all know the latest.
I was kinda freaked out when I first woke up (having not slept much) and husband was nowhere to be found and not answering his cell. But he wouldn’t be out there plowing if all weren’t well.(EDIT: Confirmed. I just spoke to him, they want to keep Shadow one more day as he’s just started eating, but with all the heavy meds, he’s having trouble standing and walking, so they’ll watch him for about another 24. If he responds better, perhaps by this afternoon, but they are being very careful not to stress him as that can cause relapse apparently.)
I forgot to show you guys this…it was my Valentine’s gift (about two weeks late, but I got it the day Mimz went to see the new doc and kept meaning to show it to you) that daughter and hubby conspired to get for me.
((((((((((((((((Pam)))))))))))))) I hope Sammy is doing well!
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lolz…I am dropping hints of maybe one with Mimzy’s pic and one with Griff’s for my birthday and Christmas.
With all my animal companions, I could have a fully loaded charm bracelet in two years! ^_^ Good news! Dr. called this afternoon to say Shadow is up and moving around, he’s gone #1 only so far, and he’s having small meals about three times or more per day. She said he’s pushing all that crud that gathered in his stomach when it twisted out of his system, so still a high heart rate, but steady rhythm. She felt he was doing well enough to come home today, but we asked them to keep him one more night just to be safe. Roads aren’t plowed and there’s easily almost two feet of new snow out there now. It would be a very stressful drive to try to get him today.
I also asked her if the stomach would twist again. She says no, but he could get bloat again since he’s had it now. We’ll have to get him a new diet, definitely. She also said that if I was worried about Taiku having the same problem, we could get him the same surgery proactively, but I think we’ll just wait on that for now.
We hope he will be home tomorrow.
I know he must miss us, I hope he doesn’t think we just left him there for good, poor thing.
They are good to him though. I am SO glad these people are working on him, it’s like night and day compared to what we had.Off to clean up his beddy area in the back room and be sure there are no other things he can ingest back there. Apparently they had to switch him to oral meds because he’s trying to eat his catheter. 0_o
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Well he’s home tonight.. He’s sleeping in the back room under the peewee pool table. Complete with cone. >_<
He hates Elizabethan collars. I don’t blame him. You can just see it going through his mind, “Oh PLEASE no! Don’t make me go out in public with THIS on!!!”
He was very wobbly upon arrival at home. They gave him two tramadol before we left this morning, that stuff REALLY messes with him nerve wise. He’s going to be unstable until he can get off of that. They gave him an awful lot of morphine if the bill is any indication. Poor thing…he’s probably been doing some serious hallucinating by now.
According to the tech who released him to us, he didn’t want to get up to walk today. But hubby got into his stall with him and within minutes he was out, on his lead and heading for the furthest corner of the parking lot where I guess he wee’d a large load. My poor baby. I tell you, the guilt is riding high on me, I am almost afraid to take him outdoors myself today, simply because I feel so responsible for all this. I know it’s not all my fault, but still…I just kept telling him I was sorry. Sorry to have walked him too soon after eating. Sorry to have left him in the hospital for three days. Sorry for the misery I have added to his life.
I rode in the back of the Yukon with him the whole way home (I couldn’t get up and walk by the time we got here, my legs were so badly cramped) and just petted his side and chest and face and tried to tell him we hadn’t left him for good, that the doctor said he needed to stay the extra days and that I would do anything to see him up and back to his old self again.Listen to me, gassbagging like a loon. 0_o I just feel so helpless…he’s got a ten inch scar on his belly. Most of the hair that had grown back has been shaved. He is listed on his care instructions as “doing great!” Holy cats, if this is doing great, I’d hate to see what NOT doing great would be!
At least he’s home. All I can do now is pray, wait and try my best to bring him back up to par.
Thanks again everyone, for all your heartfelt prayers and healing vibes! You are all so wonderful! ^_^ -
Aww, welcome home Shadow!!
You have been so very good to him- accidents do happen, don’t beat yourself up for it. You have gone above and beyond what many would do to care for him.
I bet he’s soooooooo glad to be home where he can relax and get back to his normal routine.
I know you guys will take great care of him as he recovers- take good care of yourselves too
Get well, Shadow! We are all thinking about you!
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Thanks Jerz.
And yeah, I asked about that. Apparently the doc said it didn’t really have anything to do with the tennis ball fragments. It was the walking immediately after eating which is the trigger for bloat in dogs.
Sooo…yeah. Not gonna do THAT again. In fact, I really need to go back there and see why he hasn’t come up for air yet. The meds do make him sleep a lot, but he’s got to eat smaller meals more frequently now, to keep this from happening again. So I need to see if I can coax a little boiled chicken into him. (hopefully minus my fingers)
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OMG Mimz!!! Hugs!! Well, WOW!! You have all been through so much, and if anything maybe it was actually good that you walked him and then the problem was found. i mean they said he stomach was turning purple, and who knows even though they said the walk caused the bloat, it actually may have saved him. It didn’t seem like it was passing and over time…what in the world could have happened? And there was NO way for you to know. If anything, you were being so selfless and making sure to walk him even when you didn’t feel good. You are an incredibly caring human being and Shadow couldn’t be luckier to have such a wonderful human tribe to love him so much. : )
So give yourself props for all the love and good you do. Shadow will benefit more from that vibe then if you punish yourself. Instead of apologizing, maybe replace it with “I’m so grateful to have you, so grateful that the doctors found what was wrong, so grateful that we could get you to the vets in time…: Just appreciation instead of blame. What a more loving positive energy that doesn’t place blame.
Your vet sounds amazing too, and hopefully they will be like mine and offer payment plans. That helps so much.
I also love that necklace! What a thoughtful loving gift!
You have a great family, human and animal, and please be sure to not tear yourself down and blame yourself as that is soooo far from the reality.
If I come back as a animal in my next life, I’d want to be part of your clan.
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Okay, here’s one that’ll make you wonder. 0_o
So the husband comes home from work last night, I am about reduced to tears because Shadow is so unresponsive and seems like he just doesn’t want to draw another breath. “Daddy” comes home, takes off his ‘cone’ and the dog is up like a shot and sliding into his walking jacket and off the two of them go and down the road….Now can I get over the almost undeniable feeling I’ve just been snubbed? >_<
All I can say is, than God he loves one of us enough to shake off the blues! ^_^ He’s getting the last of the surgery meds out of his system and today wanted me to walk him all the way down the street.
This is verboten of course, until 10 days have passed. He also has a probiotic to take daily, as we want that tummy to be completely happy from now on. And who can be sad knowing they get fresh meat for meals each day for the rest of their lives? (Well, if you’re a dog that is.)
I want to flog the tech who released him to us though, (not only did she forget to hand us his meds, so we had to go back the day we brought him home) she let us out the door without taking his heparin lock out. (I had to do that today.) It was no big, and I don’t fault the vet for it, she was not happy when I told her about it. 0_o
Anyway, I’m just happy to see my boy is starting to act like himself again. Finally! ^_^
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Today we had to both go in to town, me to see my doc (the nurse practitioner actually) as my left arm was swollen (I have lymphaedema) and Shadow to see why he hasn’t gone #2 since he got home Saturday night.
Sooo…doctor got him going, let’s just say. ^_^ Poor guy…I think hubby’s never seen that poor dog’s eyes get so big as when the doctor “assisted” him. ~_~
But he’s doing real good. Quite on the mend I would say. Stitches (or staples, whatever) come out on the 19th.
I think I need more meds for Mimzy though. He started sneezing again last night.
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