I really need to try and remember to do this a bit more often... stuff happens, and I keep thinking "Ooh, I'll write a blog entry about that!" And I never get around to it. And it's not that I keep doing other things and never come here, because I do. There have been times where I started a blog entry, and then didn't finish because I got distracted by something or other. But this time I am going to finish it.
So my mom headed out to Hawaii for a couple of weeks to see friends, and to also see my cousin graduate college. So it was just me, my Belgian Malinois Nevada, and her two German Shepherds, Bo and Tina. Nevada and Bo don't get along, so if they're not in separate rooms, they gotta be muzzled, otherwise there are growls and jaws snapping. Obviously we can't have that. Usually we keep them separated, but when it was just me, it was a bit of a challenge when it came to feeding time and letting the dogs out in the yard to do their business. But I managed.
Saturday rolled around, and I was coming down the stairs in a pair of heeled boots. The heel caught the edge of one of the steps as I was about halfway down and I fell again. Thankfully this time, it was carpeted stairs, and most of the impact was my back, though I won't lie, it did take me about a minute to be able to get to my feet. But I wasn't feeling dizzy, and I didn't have a headache (though my back really hurt for a few days) so I take this as a good sign. I'll have to remember to tell my doctor about it when I see him tomorrow, though.
On Monday, I woke up to bring Nevada and Tina downstairs so they could go outside and have breakfast. I got downstairs to Tina's kennel, and saw that she had an accident. "Well," I thought, "That's gonna be fun to clean up." I let her outside to the back yard, Nevada too, and I got all their dishes ready. All the dogs are usually very happy when it's meal time. Nevada's happy dance rivals that of Snoopy. Tina's a bit older, so she doesn't dance, but there's usually a skip to her step. That day, there wasn't, and she poked her nose at her food, which she normally inhales, and instead drained the water dish. That wasn't very surprising to me, as I kinda figured she'd be dehydrated. After I filled up her water again, I took Nevada upstairs and put him back in his house, then went to let Bo out. Bo also had an accident, and due to the color of the bed he lays on in his crate, I didn't realize it until I let him out, and there were dirty paw prints leading through my mom's room all the way downstairs. This was shaping up the be quite the morning for me.
Tina had once more drained her water dish, and Bo was also skipping his breakfast and wanting to drink water. It seemed odd to me, but when Tina proceeded to throw up all the water she just drank (right on the carpet, yet another sudden cleaning task on my to-do list) I put her and Bo outside so that I could at least get the worst of the mess cleaned up. I looked outside, and Bo was eating a lot of grass, which said to me he was probably on the verge of throwing up himself. I called the vet's office and asked for an appointment so that I could bring them in. They said they could see me at 3:00 in the afternoon, and at the time, it was 11:00. I finished cleaning up the messes in the kennels and the tracks Bo made, and put the two of them in my car and drove to the vet.
One of the things that was a result of my fall back in September is my sense of smell is very weak. Now I know what you're thinking when you read that sentence. "She's talking about her mom's dogs being sick, and suddenly she's going on about her nose?" Well, first of all, part of the name of the blog is 'random stuff'. But I actually have a point to make here. My sense of smell is very weak, and therefore it wasn't until I reached the vet's office and opened the door to let Bo out that I realized he had had yet another accident. To anyone else, the smell probably would have made them gag. But there was nothing I could do about it at that point, so I took Bo in and showed him to the vet. She couldn't find anything wrong with him, and when I mentioned my mom was out of town, she thought it could have just been stress, as Bo is not used to not having his mommy around. She held onto Bo for me as I went back to the car to bring Tina in, and my red flag was soaring higher as I watched the way she walked. The vet noticed it right away too, and when she looked at Tina's gums, they were white, which meant there was blood loss. She brought the ultrasound over and saw that there was blood in Tina's abdomen.
She took her back to do an x-ray so they could get a proper look. It turned out that she had a tumor on her spleen that had ruptured, likely due to her throwing up. It bleed into her abdomen, and she needed surgery. There was also concern that she had tumors growing on her liver as well. I got a hold of my mom and had the vet explain things to her, and of course my mom's answer was the same as mine, get her into surgery right away. It didn't matter that nothing could be done about her liver, and that she'd only have a few months left, what mattered was Mom being able to say goodbye to Tina. I rode home with Bo, trying to focus on the drive rather than just Tina, though that was difficult. As a handler, Tina was actually once my partner. When she retired, my mom adopted her, so we'd both made a lot of memories with that dog.
However, this does end happily! Tina's surgery went very well, though our vet had to remove what she believed to be the remains of a belt. No belts are missing, so what exactly Tina had eaten remains a mystery. I got to take her home just two days after her surgery, and we also have high hopes that the spots on her liver are actually benign. Looks like we got Tina for a few more years!
This "scaring the heck out of us" thing is actually a habit of Tina's. She's done it before, and I really hope she doesn't decide to do it again. It's just not funny anymore, Mama T.
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