Ghost's Tummy and the Horrible Evening at the Vet

Ghost’s has had an upset tummy again. This makes the fourth bout of diarrhea since we got her in the middle of December. The first was giardia, the second was some other parasite, the third we don’t know because we just treated her at home, and now, the fourth happened a couple weeks ago.

She was a little anxious the Thursday morning before Easter and her poop was quite runny when Nathan walked her before work. We came home that night to a mess upstairs, but she seemed okay, so we fed her dinner. BIG mistake. She woke us up repeatedly that night to go out and poop. Good thing Friday was a holiday, otherwise Nathan and I would have been toast. So we didn’t feed her Friday morning and then that night she had some beef broth with her kibble and some pieces of roast pork. Saturday it was more beef broth and kibble for both her meals. By this time, her poops we’re improving, so we thought “great”. I fed her dry kibble Sunday morning and evening. And she woke us up repeatedly that night to go out. Good thing we both had Easter Monday off too. So I decided to try plain white rice and boiled chicken. Did that Monday night and Tuesday. She still wasn’t getting any better. Poops were still runny and she had no energy at all. I mean, she was still happy to go for walks and to agility class, but as soon as we get home, she’d just collapse on the floor exhausted.

So Wednesday I called the vet and they booked us in to their “emergency” slot that night at 6:20 pm. Since Nathan was fencing, I had to take her in myself. Raced home after work, wolfed down a bowl of cereal and then took her down to the vet, about a 30 minute walk away.

I opened the door and was greeted by the sound of a woman WAILING. She was sobbing and wailing and kicking things and yelling at her relatives. From the bits and pieces I overheard and was told, her dog had died quite suddenly. Apparently she had one of those ones with the snub nose and her parents (she was probably mid-twenties) had fed the dog something and it choked and died. I guess it’s actually a fairly common thing for those smushed faced dogs to choke on things. I’m sure she blamed them for her dog dying. It was pretty horrible. And THEN I looked around some more.

There are 4 treatment rooms at our vet. Ghost and I were in one, the sobbing lady and her family in another. Across the way in one of the other two, I saw a man come out with an empty cat carrier and a nurse go into the back with a bundle of blankets that were holding a very still cat. In the other room there was an elderly couple who didn’t have any pet with them at all that I could see. They were just sitting there. And then I heard them ask if they could have their blanket back.

Ick. Ghost was the only pet that was alive in that place. It was horrible. I felt so awful for everyone there, like I was parading my dog that ONLY had diarrhea before their grief. And then I started to get paranoid about Ghost. What if it was something WORSE? What if she wasn’t really fine?

But, the visit with the vet went fine. He thinks they probably just didn’t get all of the parasite/bacteria/whatever from the second time, rather than she’s been unlucky to infect herself AGAIN. So we got some soft food and the powder to put on top and a prescription for some antibiotic-type pills. At the same time we got her giardia vaccination, so that’s good. She was a good girl, just a bit squirmy, but didn’t yelp or anything at the needle.

Of course at this point I just wanted to get the hell out of there with my live pet, but I didn’t know how I was going to get the prescription. I’m sure Shoppers wouldn’t have liked me bringing Ghost inside. So I called Mom. Nathan said afterwards to me “Couldn’t you have left her at the vet’s while you ran over to get the pills?” Well, probably. But did I WANT to leave her? Not on god’s green earth. So Mom came and sat with Ghost in the car while I got her pills and then drove us home. I was so completely exhausted and drained by this point that I just collapsed into my chair and sat for an hour before I dragged myself up to bed.

Now she's almost done her meds and she's definitely back to her usual goofy self. Of course, now I'm sick. I caught the office plague. And being pregnant and sick at the same time SUCKS! I was off Thursday, Friday last week and Monday. I went to work Tuesday morning, cried 3 times in the first hour and then went home at lunch. I've declared I'm taking the rest of the week off work too. I can't get any sleep, I get exhausted showering or going up the stairs, and I just feel icky. Cold wise, I think it's getting better, but still not great. I talked to the midwives today and they said that because my immune system is messed up from being pregnant it could take 2 or 3 weeks longer to recover from a common cold. Oh joy. So in the meantime I'll nap if I can, sit in my chair, read, watch trashy daytime television and hope everything eventually gets better.