Angels watchin' over me, every step I take... Angels watchin' over me!

The past two weeks have been an intensely stressful time for Wheatley and for us.  This tail amputation has turned into one, long nightmare.  I have beat myself up more than once for the things I could and should have done differently.  I am relating what happened last Friday in the hope that someone else will find something in it to learn from as well...

My husband took the dog back to the vet AGAIN on Thursday and she replaced the pain patch (50 mcg Sentinel) and gave him a new prescription of ACE.  Truly, in 10 years, I have never seen our dog so freaked out and in pain, as these last two weeks, so my husband and I and the vet were all on the same page in trying to get the dog some relief.

Well, at the vet, they gave him 2 ACE.  About 3 hours later, when he was getting really agitated, my husband gave him another 1, and then at around 9:30, I gave him 2 more.  The vet had told us that we could give him up to 5 pills 3 times a day - which is an inordinate amount, in my thinking, and really, the 5 that we gave him over 7 hours seemed a bit much, but again, he was SO agitated and in pain, I thought the last 2 would just get him safely and sanely through the night.

Friday morning at around 5:30, my husband wakes me up, concerned because the dog is extremely lethargic.  Now, he isn't exactly a morning dog - in fact, he will lay in bed with you all day, if you want to do that.  I reassured my husband that he was probably just being stubborn and hey, it was really early.  So, he left and we all went back to sleep.  I had decided to work from home on Friday because of the continuing situation, and my alarm went off at 7 am.  I turned it off, and rolled over and went back to sleep.

You know how sometimes you wake up like a bolt of lightning hits you?  Well, all of the sudden, 13 minutes later, I woke up and rolled over to the dog.  I couldn't feel him breathing, couldn't find a heartbeat, and when I opened his eyes, they DID NOT MOVE.  Of course, I am instantly up and I grab him, and I'm shouting his name and shaking him.  All I can think of is, "Oh my God, oh my God, he's dead.  He's dead!  oh my God."  I throw on the clothes that are nearest to me, and the voice in my head is shouting GET HIM UP, GET HIM UP!  So, I grab him, stand him up, shake him, and finally, he's responding a little bit.  All I can think is get him outside RIGHT THIS MINUTE.  So, I grab him and we run outside.  I get him to stand up, and he's standing there, next to the car and he's just swaying there.

So, the booming voice in my head says GET THE LEASH and WALK HIM RIGHT NOW.  So, I grab the leashes, and we're off down the street.  At this point, thank God, there were a lot of people coming and going and a few people walking dogs, so he was getting more alert by the moment.  And he was walking fairly steadily.  I know I looked like a damn wild woman walking down the street in my tank top and bright yellow pants with my hair flying all over and my mouthpiece still in, but I could not have cared less.  The dog was alive, thank God, and at this point, appeared to be going to make it.

We get back inside and I realize that because he's so lethargic, he's not interested in drinking anything.  I try ice cubes, which he normally loves.  Not having it.  I try chicken broth, which he normally loves.  No dice.  I open the one utensil drawer to get something, and what sticks up and jams the door open?  the small turkey baster.  Divine intervention?  Absolutely.  So, I get a big bowl of water and a towel and start syringing water into his mouth.  He lets me do this, and I decide that once he's had a few, I'll leave him be, but I will "baste" him once an hour, minimally. 

I get online and see that basically, if we've overdosed him on ACE, the only thing to do is to let it run its course and watch for seizures or whathaveyou.  It doesn't occur to me that the pain patch would be making him lethargic and everything as well.  My goal of the day then became to get him hydrated and his blood flowing fairly frequently, so as to get the ACE out of his system as soon as possible.  We took a walk an hour, just to keep him moving, and I syringed water into him after our outings, and he napped inbetween.  By the time my husband came home, we decided that the pain patch was probably contributing just as much to the general lethargy, and we opted to take it off.  We both agreed that we'd rather have him in a little pain than DEAD!  Obviously, he got no ACE on Friday, and about 6 hours after we took the pain patch off, he FINALLY seemed like himself.

I did call the vet office to see if something had changed in the pain medication patch - it was a different patch - but she said that both were 50 mcg Sentinel, and were just from different manufacturers.  She said that it was just basically a result of all the ACE and the patch, but really didn't seem overly concerned.  Certainly, they were glad he was ok now!

I feel a tremendous amount of guilt for giving him those last 2 ACE on Thursday night, and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I had slept longer, he would not be with us today.  I hope we never ever have to go through anything like this again, and I will be wary of mixing medications - especially with how sensitive he appears to be!  We have been so lucky through these last 10 years that we have never had anything like this.  I mean, with his back cyst removal, we had none of this drama.  He has always been very healthy, and I guess, with him being an older dog, we're just going to have to be more careful.  I am immensely thankful that he is ok!!!

Back to Life, Back to Reality...

This last week has been the most traumatic, stressful week I can ever remember having.  I truly don't know how human babies make it past the first year of life...or more to the point, how their parents do! 
Having my dog get attacked and bitten in the face was trauma enough, but electing to have his tail amputated two days later to remove the cyst that's been there for years...well, that was icing on the cake.

He did fine during and right after the surgery, but what the vet didn't take into consideration was that his "new" tail was just the right length to touch the floor when he was laying at rest.  Consequently, there was NO rest from Tuesday night through Friday, until after 2 kinds of pills didn't work, we were up in the middle of the night all week, he was frantic and anxious and in obvious pain... and finally the vet applied a pain patch and gave him acepromazine.

I am ordinarily not a fan of ACE.  We used it when he was younger because of his insane anxiety during thunderstorms.  I did NOT like the effect it had.  He was still clearly freaking out, but because of the medication, it was like this muted, drowning panic.  It was nooooot good, and if I had been the one to go the vet on Friday, I probably wouldn't have taken it from her...  Because it was my husband who went, and because he can't bear to have his baby suffer, he was all for anything that knocked him out for awhile.

So, we drugged him up, and proceeded to do so for the next 3 days.  I will say that it has definitely made a difference in EVERYONE's anxiety level.  And, he even weathered last night's thunderstorm pretty well - a feat, in and of itself.

Today, he seems almost back to normal, except for the soft cone and the missing 4 inches of tail they cut off.  My poor baby!!  I hate to see him suffer!  The stitches are dissolvable, so they should stop itching him soon.  Of course, his hair is going to have to grow back on his tail, his back and his front leg.  He looks like Franken-dog with all his missing hair and scabbed up nose.  I guess it will all be back to normal in a few months and we'll forget just how much trauma we all went through this week!

Here's to a low key, non-traumatic week...heck, month ahead!!