Two weeks to the day later… we landed in the Mass. Veterinary Referral Hospital – again – only this time with our Emmalee!
You couldn’t script this stuff! We are still shaking our heads over it.
Don’t worry. We didn’t lose her, too.
Last night we all went up to bed around 9 p.m. (our usual time). I could not sleep at all. I had what I now call a “Whitby-attack” wherein thoughts and visions of her come flooding into my brain and I can’t shut them out, which always results in uncontrollable sobbing. So I had a Whitby-attack last night whilst trying to get to sleep.
Sleep wasn’t coming, though – no way…
I tried listening to the radio (headphones) for a while – the Red Sox were starting late (10 p.m.) since they are playing on the West Coast, but I got bored with that, and the Whitby-attack was just bumping all other thoughts right out of my head in favor of the indescribable sadness that I still feel about losing her.
I must have dozed off eventually, around 11 or midnight, and maybe I did sleep for an hour, but around 1 a.m. I was aware of the light going on in the hallway and Paul was standing in the doorway doing something that seemed to be pulling me out of my restfulness and into wakefulness…
I asked what the heck he was doing – and he said “I think there’s something wrong with Emmalee.”
No!
I won’t have it!
It can’t be happening!
At first, I tried pretending he was only joshing – but no, he was worried.
He had been asleep and Emma had gotten out of her bed (a sofa in the bedroom) and came over to let Paul know she wanted to go out. So he got up to let her out – down the steep stairway, out the front door, down the 5 steps to the yard. He waited there, in his PJs, in the dark early morning hour, until she’d apparently done her jobs, and then, when she was coming back in, she was having a hard time walking up the 5 steps to the front door!
She did get up them, but then when he ushered her up the long steep staircase to the 2nd floor level, she was stumbling all over the place, and couldn’t quite seem to get up them.
I kid you not!
Once he got her up here, she was stumbling all around the bedrooms and the hallway, falling down, trying to stand up again, and falling down again. All four legs seemed to be made out of rubber!
When I saw what was happening to her, not really quite awake yet, I just groaned that I HAD to get some sleep since I had a ton of typing facing me in the morning! Paul simply had to deal with this himself (seeing as I had to deal with the Whitby ordeal previously).
He tried calming her down, but she was restless. He got her up on his bed, and he said that if she had stayed put there, he would not have gotten up again. She she wouldn’t stay put. Then she began to pant.
Oh. My. God.
He turned the lights on again, and this got my attention. He got dressed and said he was taking her to North Andover (one of the two emergency hospitals for dogs but not very close). I relented, not wishing him to have to drive AND hold her on the seat at the same time.
We called all the necessary emergency numbers, and it was determined that our best bet would be Woburn (where Whitby went). We had never wanted to visit that place again, and here we were, planning another trip – in the middle of the night!
I got dressed quickly, and out the door we all went, into my car. Paul and Emma on the back seat, and me at the wheel. Half asleep.
Luckily there’s not much traffic at 1:20 a.m which is when we left the house. Since Emma was panting and she felt decidedly hot, we put some ice cubes into a zip-lock baggie and Paul held it to the back of her neck. I put the A/C on high in the car (I brought no coat and was frozen by the time we arrived there).
It took us about 25 – 30 minutes to get there – maybe a tad less. Hardly any traffic, but cop-cars to the left of us, to the rear of us, and all around us! It seemed… Paul kept wanting me to run the red lights (it seemed that we caught every single red light there was from here out to Route 128). But I wouldn’t.
That’s all we would need, to get pulled over while Emma was having a crisis!
So we made it to the hospital by around 2 a.m. They rushed her into their big examining room and asked us to wait in the little people-waiting room.
Just like last time.
It was all too familiar.
I really thought we’d be going home dogless. I just kept shaking my head in disbelief.
We had our meeting with the doctor and went over all possibilities – any toxic substances lying around? Any weird food eaten? Vaccinations recently? Heartworm pills recently? Etc.
She told us that Emma had a slightly elevated fever but nothing as bad as Whitby had had. I think it was 102 – Whitby’s had been 106! She appeared to be slightly dehydrated.
They were going to draw bloods and do an abdominal xray and a chest xray.
We went out to the TV room to wait the half to one hour that it would take. There was NO WAY I was leaving her there alone! Not this time!
The TV in the TV room could only get one PBS station. And it was showing an old show on snow tigers that both of had seen years ago… when it got to the point of the wild animals devouring other wild animals for their meals, I had to leave the room.
Finally, we got called back into the little exam room and she said she couldn’t find anything definitely wrong. She said Emma was walking fine now.
Figures! just like when your car is making a very strange loud noise, and you take it to the car mechanic, and of course it won’t do it for him! It never fails!
But I was happy anyway.
After a long consultation with the doc, we decided they would take more bloods to send out for a more comprehensive blood testing. They wanted to give her subcutaneous IV fluids before leaving, but we could take her home.
OH. MY. GOD.
THANK YOU!
I don’t know what time we walked out the door with Emmalee on the lead between the two of us. We were the only car in the parking lot. And it was starting to get light out.
Dawn was coming!
In the car, the clock said 4:57 a.m.
Back home by around 5:30 and it was quite light by then. We all were so completely tired that we just shut all the curtains, climbed into bed and slept for about 2-3 hours before we had to get up again to start the day.
We had planned to take Paul’s Mom & Dad out to lunch for her birthday today, so that had to be postponed. (Happy Birthday, Mom!)
I didn’t get started typing until 9:45 a.m. and Paul stayed home from lobstering – just because I didn’t want to be here alone if anything else should happen.
Emma has to eat a “bland diet” for 3-4 days. I cooked up a huge pan of hamburg, and we made a huge pot of plain rice (the 2 items they told us to feed her – protein and a carb). She has to have 3-4 small meals of that a day now for 3-4 days.
So far, so good today.
She has not stumbled once. She has slept most of the day. Hey, SHE didn’t get her usual sleep-time either.
We have both been working – me at the keyboard and Paul out in the yard doing all kinds of manual labor jobs that never seem to get done when he is fishing all summer long. Right now he is running the lawnmower – a sound I love to hear – especially when I’m not the one pushing it!
We’ll all sleep good tonight, no doubt. But we have our dog back and just hope and pray that whatever was the matter with her is gone. We have no idea what happened. I hate a mystery like that. It eats at my brain til I just about go insane.
While we were at the hospital, not knowing the outcome, I told Paul that if we get to take Emma home with us, I don’t think getting another dog right now is prudent. Supposing we’d had a new puppy here who really shouldn’t have been left home alone? How would we have done this? I think we’ll stick to just Emma for now, and then look around much later on. There is just so much of this stuff my psyche can take!
Bex & Co.
