Penny Feeling Better
Well, I wanted to update folks on what we have been through with poor Penny in the last week. So, Monday morning we woke up to find that Penny had vomited in about 4 locations throughout our house. Yes... my favorite way to start out the week... Ross and I team-cleaning up dog vomit in a fruitless attempt to try to still leave on time for work.
I hoped/figured that would be a one-time deal- but it was not. Penny stopped eating and drinking, and was vomiting throughout the day for two full days. On the third morning, I headed to work- fortunately just a professional development day- and the whole way there felt that I was making a bad decision leaving Penny alone another day. It didn't take too much convincing on the part of two dog-loving co-workers that I should really go home and take Penny into the vet. I then called around and found that the two vet techs I talked with agreed: Penny should come in now.
I hurried home to find a very droopy and dejected Penny, and two more puddles of stomach fluid. I almost had to carry her up the basement stairs to get her to come up! At the vet I found out that Penny was devastatingly dehydrated; they gave her sub-cutaneous fluid injections and took X-rays to check for blockages in her intestines. Nothing was found- so she got a few injections to help with her symptoms, and I took her home with some very bland food, on the assumption that she had probably just eaten something in the yard that upset her.
Well, I wish that were the end of the story, but when I got Penny home from the vet, I put her right out in the yard. That's when I got my real heart attack: Penny went to go #2- you know what I mean- and nothing but blood came out. In tears, I called the vet back, and they said to bring her right back. They put her on IV fluids & antibiotics and kept her in doggy-ICU to monitor her, and Penny wound up being in the vet for three days and two nights. And of course, everyone at our new animal hospital fell in love with Penny :).
Side story: Here's what made my week in the middle of all of this stress. Wednesday I was pretty miserable, and had spent about half of the day in tears worrying over my puppy, on top of having to leave her at the vet overnight for the first time ever. That evening around 5, three of my amazing co-workers showed up at my doorstep with a case of one of my favorite beers. Two of them live over an hour from me, and had come the complete opposite direction after work just to come give me a pick-me-up :). They stayed and kept me company for over an hour while we shared a few cold ones. On top of that, I can't tell you how many people at work this week have checked in with me to see how my puppy is doing. Have I mentioned that I LOVE the people I work with???
So, back the storyline. On Friday, after Penny finally started to eat and drink again on her own again, they released her with a symptomatic diagnosis: Hemorrhagic Gastroenteritis. Basically an inflamed colon/digestive track combined with internal bleeding; cause unknown. We have some ideas about what she may have eaten to cause it- trash in the yard (unfortunately we get a lot blowing into our yard somehow), grill rocks, something out of the trash, maybe a beer bottle top... we'll probably never know!
Either way, Penny is now lying in a sunny patch on the floor about 4 ft from me, snoozing- this on top of the 14 hours that she didn't leave her bed last night- and has so far kept down the rice & peanut butter she had a few spoonfuls of this morning. She's got some recovery ahead of her still, but it's great to have her back!
One last cool thing
I wanted to show everyone the amazing moth that I found on the door handle of my school on Wednesday this past week. I almost had a heart attack because I didn't notice it until I had my key in the lock. It shouldn't have been THAT well camouflaged on a door- but somehow it still seemed to blend in. It's one of the biggest I've ever seen!
