And the lemons keep on coming ...
The heartache of a poorly pet
Hot on the heels of my domain name disaster, I now have a very poorly dog again. Miss Flimp was fine on Saturday evening, and seemed to enjoy a long walk as heat dissipated. She wasn’t that interested in her food, but to be fair neither am I that interested in food if I’m hot. So I wasn’t overly concerned.
That was a mistake. Husband woke me at 6.45am on Sunday (wth, if there’s no athletics why so early?) to inform that the dog was vomiting. Cheers, thanks for the tea you didn’t bring me, darling.
Thankfully our vets have a Sunday morning surgery for registered pets (better service than for humans!), so along we go. One blood test and £600 later (the great service comes at a cost, fortunately we have insurance) and off we go with tablets to get into a notoriously obstinate pill refusenik.
By lunchtime, it’s clear that Flimp is very, very unwell. I picked up the phone to call the vet, just as he called me. Her pancreas markers are off the charts, and he wants her in the clinic and on a drip. So for the second time, we deliver Flimp to the vets and leave her there.
I can’t really describe the feeling of leaving my pet at the vets, not knowing if I’ll see her alive again. There’s the mix of knowing that she needs the care the vet’s practice can give. They have access to drugs especially painkillers that are not prescribed for home use. Giving drugs intravenously is kinder than trying to shove pills down the throat of a small dog who is resisting taking them. There’s the knowledge that if she takes a turn for the worse, she can receive care that I can’t give. It still feels like a betrayal, looking at her little face as the vet takes her into the inner workings of the clinic.
Mr B and I found ourselves having the conversation about how far do we go with treatment for a very unwell dog. She can’t tell us how much pain she is in, or if the pain relief given is adequate. She can’t express her own wishes with regards to her care. When she was trying to take herself off into the bushes, I was beginning to think the worst - is that her way of expressing that she thinks her own end is near? Or am I overthinking and should I just leave her alone and see how she progresses? When does caring veer into cruelty?
Monday wasn’t a good day. Flimp was really struggling. I was allowed a very brief visit after hours, but I’m not sure that was good for either of us. Things started looking up on Tuesday. From looking like she would need to stay another night, by the afternoon she was deemed well enough to come home. ‘Well’ being relative: she was still a very poorly dog. Then the is the angst of ‘what if she takes a turn for the worse in the night?’ and ‘I’ve somehow got to get pills into her’. The pills went in relatively easily the first night home. That really meant that she was feeling to horrid to object.
The next paranoia was ‘is she drinking enough?’ Especially as it’s hot. However, like horses, you can take a dog to water, but you can’t force it to drink. Improvisation comes into play in times like this: I’ve started mixing water into her food, to make it a bit like soup. She doesn’t seem to mind this fortunately.
On Thursday morning, she bit me as I tried to get the pills into her. That’s a good sign - if she’s fighting me, she’s getting stronger. She’s also coming and going to and from the garden under her own steam - our home is on a hill, and there are a couple of big steps down from house to patio to grass.
Bimble has been a bit discombobulated. She was very upset that we came home without Flimp, and was very overwhelming when Flimp came home. She’s pretty much been hovering around Flimp like a little mama bear. Bimble even managed something that she never does, which is get in from the grass under her own steam, in order to stay close to Flimp.
Flimp has a follow up appointment with the vet in the morning, for a repeat blood test. If her pancreas enzymes are still high, I don’t know what the next steps are. I don’t want to even let myself think about that.