I went to work an hour late - and was greeted by thirty little 3-5 year olds shouting happy birthday. They had painted me a happy birthday sign. Thirty minutes after I arrived at work, my vet called to tell me they had exrayed Tussey and found that she had swallowed a rock! The rock was at the exit point of her stomach, trying to get to her intestines. I was told I needed to come get her right away and transport her to a veterinary hospital where they could try to put a scope down her throat to get the rock out, otherwise, they would have to operate.
I left work, in tears, drove to the vet, picked up my dog and the exrays, paid an un-godly amount, and proceeded to drive her to the vet hospital, in a neighboring town, the farthest one we could possibly drive to, because the original vet hospital's scope thingy was broken.
We got to the vet hospital and waited to consult with the doctor. He looked at the exrays and said, with his twenty years of experience, that he would try the scope for ten minutes and then just do the surgery, because odds were the scope wouldn't work.
Three and a half hours later, I found out that she had come through the surgery just fine, that she had swallowed a rock about two inches in diameter, and was going to be kept overnight. Oh yeah, and the cost was through the roof - not that we had the money to begin with!
As a result of all this, much of my birthday was spent in tears and exhausted. Right after I got the call that Tussey had come out okay, the kids at my preschool sang happy birthday and we had a chocolate cake they had made for me the night before. That was a highlight in my day.
I picked Tussey up the next day. She was pretty groggy for a few days and was on puppy-vicodin and antibiotics. Here is my girl about three days after surgery. It's a good thing she's so cute and that I love her to pieces! (We've been together three years now.)
And here is the two inch incision they had to make in her tummy! It is right above the scar for when she got spayed, so now she looks as if she was cut about six inches. Poor girl! They also had to shave both of her forearms for the I.V.s that she had to have.
Here is the rock she swallowed (on the left). Yep, that's a quarter next to it. The doctor said it was a good thing the rock was smooth. Upon initial discussions, we thought she might have swallowed a rough piece of concrete, which we have multitudes of in our backyard.
It's a pretty good sized rock. I am not sure it is two inches in diameter as they first said...but either way, OUCH!
A week after surgery, Tussey went in for a follow-up. Turned out her incision was infected and so she was put on MORE antibiotics and given a fashionable cone to wear, as we weren't sure if she was licking the incision. She wore the cone for about two days. The incision is better now, no more swelling.
Yesterday I took Tussey off of her two-weeks of jumping restrictions. She now has free reign of the house again. But she is on a very tight leash as far as spending time in the backyard. No unsupervised frolicking for her until we can remove all of the rocks and concrete in our backyard...which may be never.It was quite the memorable birthday! One which I hope NEVER to repeat. We are just glad our girl is okay. It wouldn't be the same without her.
