[Dailydrool] Healing Drool Needed

Wed May 19 05:58:42 PDT 2010

We need some healing drool please!

On Friday night our male Basset, Stan broke out of our gated kitchen area and ate a plastic bag, a sheet, a stuffed animal and the stuffing from a comforter/blanket.  Saturday morning when we woke up we found multiple piles of vomit (he has done this before which is why he was gated in the kitchen overnight).  We thought he had vomited up everything because Saturday he ate normally, was going to the bathroom normally and was playing.

Sunday however was another day, he was fine earlier in the morning, but about 8pm Sunday night he vomited blood.  I called our vet, which of course was closed but they were able to refer us to an emergency vet.  We took our boy there, just to walk in the door was $205.00.  We waited over 2 hours to see the vet, they had other emergencies.  Once we did get in they did x-rays of Stan's belly.  They didn't see anything abnormal.  The plan they came up with was to keep him overnight and repeat x-rays in 4-5 hours.  If needed they would bring him in for surgery around 7am-8am.  Because our own vet opened at 7am my husband and I decided to take him home and monitor him.  It kills me that this came down to a cost decision (because my Stan is my everything) but the emergency vet wanted $1400 to monitor overnight + $3500 for surgery.  Because they were looking at bringing him in for surgery about the same time our vet opened it just made more financial sense to bring him to our normal vet plus I felt like we could do more for him (cost wise) at our own vet.  Before we brought him home they loaded him up on IV fluids, an anti vomiting medication and pain medication.

I slept with him in the kitchen that night and he was fine until about 4:30 when he had to go potty.  Took him outside, and then he went back to sleep until about 6a.m, then we left to bring him to our vet.  He was able to get in and be seen by 7:15 a.m.  They took him, did repeat x-rays and brought him in for surgery immediately.  There was still nothing to be seen on the x-rays but with how sick he was at this point, something was wrong.  When they opened him up they found a linear foreign body...which if I explain this right means part of the object was already digesting into the intestine while another part attached (too large to fit through the opening of the stomach into the intestines) was stuck in the stomach.  This caused his intestines to accordion onto themselves.  He also had another large object completely stuck in his small intestine.  When it was all done our poor boy lost about 3 feet of his intestines.  :(  The vet believes it was the stuffing from the blanket that did it.

When the vet called me on Monday after the surgery they were very concerned about toxemia, suture rejection and short bowel syndrome.  We have made it passed the toxemia!  Suture rejection appears to be our next hurdle.  The vet thought we would know about this by Thursday or Friday.  I guess it isn't something that is common but because Stan has so many sutures and now has a lack of intestine if he did reject sutures it would be fatal.  The short bowel syndrome is a condition we will need to deal with.  Stan will struggle now to get the nutrients he needs from his food.

Stan was suppose to start eating solid food yesterday and didn't even want to look at it.  The vet did have to force feed him.  We went to visit yesterday and we did get a few little tail wags but mostly he is still pretty lethargic.  When the vet called me to check in last night he expressed concern about our poor boy not springing back yet.  I am waiting for 8:00 a.m. when I and get news about how he did overnight.

I feel like I have been on the biggest emotional roller coaster, I feel like we get good news, we get bad news, then good news, then bad news again.  I have so much guilt personally - like #1 that he was able to get out of the kitchen and get to all of this stuff to chew and eat.  #2 looking back to Sunday morning/afternoon there were some warning signs, he was kind of dumpy and slow moving, I wish we would have caught it earlier so he could have had surgery earlier.  :(  I just feel so bad for him that he is going through this.

So, please fling your healing drool our way!  Stan is in desperate need!

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