we're so happy to have dooley home safe and sound with us. he’s not completely out of the woods yet as his bloodwork was still not where it should be as of yesterday. dr. au felt comfortable enough to let him go home so that’s a good sign to me. he’s much less swollen today, is finally eating and seems generally to be feeling better so we’re cautiously optimistic. he won’t be totally out of the woods until the 5 days past surgery mark and because we lost owney in that period after what seemed a successful surgery i’m still pretty stressed.
this is our third round with bloat, and as in the other two cases, wasn’t a typical presentation. i’m not sure if you can call any bloat experience typical but i am sure they’re all one big shit sandwich. in the waiting room saturday night i couldn’t stop thinking this time our luck may have run out. we’ve been so fortunate each time to catch it in time and i know there are many people who haven’t had the same luck...i can only imagine the grief they are left with.
in doo’s case the surgeon believes his spleen flipped first. he had vomited thurs morning but then seemed fine and truth be told we paid little attention to it. we had an odin funk going around that ended up affecting several dogs and basically amounted to some vomiting and generally feeling shitty for about 24 hours. we assumed that was dooley’s deal as he seemed fine friday but then saturday morning seemed to feel crappy again. the surgeon thinks his spleen probably flipped for no good reason (apparently his spleen was one big, fat asshole) thursday morning, flipped back, flipped again saturday morning, flipped back and then later saturday evening flipped but that time decided to bring the stomach for a ride with it. see what i mean - that spleen was clearly a bad egg. his spleen is now medical waste somewhere where it belongs and dooley’s stomach has been tacked so it’s no longer subject to the whims of any other ne’er-do-well organs that may or may not reside in dooley’s body.
again i have to thank our earthdog community for rallying behind dooley - i’m certain that played a large part in him sitting next to me as i write this. i am so grateful and fortunate this turned out this way and thank all of you from the very bottom of my heart! i think he's pretty happy to be home as well...
