Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Another one. Seriously. This is now the house of THREE BOY DOGS. Lego and Tonka recently welcomed Hanzo into their house, their yard, and their toybox.

$1000 spare rib

I'm going to tell the Lego story chronologically. You can skip to the end if you don't want the drama and just want the expensive happy ending. Dog people might like the full story, though. Some have heard it but might like the craziness documented for re-telling. Others had no idea why I've been out of touch for a few days. Here goes...

Wednesday: Lego, the 50-pound comfort retriever (cocker/golden), vomits some blood.

Thursday morning: Lego goes to the vet, who takes x-rays ($200) and does blood tests ($120).

Thursday afternoon: The call comes just as I leave work... the x-ray reveals a sharp pointy object inside my sweet Lego. Vet isn't sure, but it looks like it is in his colon. An ultrasound ($120) doesn't suggest any scary internal injuries or bleeding, so instead of surgery, we opt to wait and see, with special food and medication ($40). Blood tests show he's not anemic, another indication that he's not "bleeding out" on the inside. "Wait and see" in this context means watching Lego vigilantly, scooping up all poop and going through it squish by squish with rubber gloves to see if the sharp object passed. It also means sleeping downstairs on the sofa, since any new symptoms would demand carrying him to the car to get to the emergency vet that night. Oh, one more lovely tidbit from the vet: Both of my dogs (I brought two poop samples-- yeeehaw) tested positive for the parasite Giardia.

Friday early morning: Lego doesn't know his insides are being dissected by a sharp object! Wants to play. Eats like a champ! But, if the object doesn't pass by 10am, I'm supposed to take him to the vet for more xrays to see if the object has moved. We have a storm that East-coasters would compare to a hurricane-- winds of 40-60 miles per hour, driving rain. All the street signs in my neighborhood have blown off. Trees are down. Debris is flying everywhere. Power goes out. But I MUST try to squeeze one more poop out of Lego before 10am, and THAT means going for a WALK. Sweet drenched boy actually poops for me. Neighbors peer through windows at the crazy lady and her dog in the park.

Friday late morning: More rubber-gloved poop squishing. No sharp objects. 9:45... time to get Lego to the vet. But without power, the garage door won't open. I drop all my weight onto the manual release. I pull every muscle from neck to lower back. I climb on a chair. I climb on my car. I finally figure out that MY height and weight aren't the problem (for this, at least)-- the CORD's size is the problem. I tie a belt to it, get better leverage, and get the garage open. I brave the storm to get my baby the medical attention he needs. :-) I drop Lego at the vet's office, confident that he's fine because he's acting so chipper. Also, God WOULDN'T make me deal with parasites and surgery in one fell swoop, right? Also, I'm starting to realize how unlikely it is that Lego has ingested something super-scary. Before Christmas, I got myself the absolute highest end home vacuum cleaner on the market: http://dysonanimalreview.com/. Like the weird guy who wrote that review, I experienced a bizarre unexpected vacuuming conversion experience. Seriously life-changing. Having gone through withdrawal while I was away for the holidays, I HAD to vacuum at least ONCE A DAY after coming home on Dec 30. Not only did I vacuum every day, I also vacuumed and sponge-cleaned the sofa, which had so much fur on it I almost thought I caught it wagging its tail. It was begging for some Dyson attention. With all of this manic vacuuming going on, then, how could Lego--who has never SWALLOWED anything he's not supposed to-- have managed to ingest something that the vet insisted looked like a sewing needle? (Sewing needles are especially scary because if they have string attached, the string can wind and slice through the intestines. Lovely.)

Friday early afternoon: The vet calls as my cell phone battery approaches dead (still no power in the house). The object hasn't moved, but the new x-rays ($80) were clearer and show that the object is NOT in his colon. Not sure where it is... might be his intestines, maybe his spleen, maybe somewhere else. Also gave him another physical exam ($40) to confirm that the object isn't just something lodged in his skin somewhere. The vet is confident he needs surgery right away, while he's stable, because once this thing shifts and punctures a vital organ, it wll be so much harder. She worries about doing the surgery herself, since they don't know what they'll find. Thinks Lego needs a specialist, right away. She refers him to the UC Davis Vet Hospital. I pick up Lego, who still doesn't know he's sick and wonders what the heck we're doing out in this weather. I feel sad... right now he feels happy and healthy. In a few hours (if we're lucky), he'll wake up feeling crappy and sore, perhaps without his spleen! Poor baby. We head towards UC Davis-- some highways have been closed throughout the day, as high winds overturn big rigs. This one seems okay. My cell phone rings... it's Marianne, from my church group. She's a vet student, saw my name on the board, is waiting there for me. God doing great things (thanks to Amy & Co. for prayers!) to get me some knowledgeable comfort, company, and support. Marianne does everything from co-piloting me into the right parking lot to staying with me throughout the entire experience. (Thanks, Marianne!)

Friday late afternoon: We're at UC Davis. Lego still doesn't know he's sick... he's getting tired, though. Grumpy with the poking and prodding. Lots of waiting here, because we're clearly not the most urgent of emergencies. The vets look at his x-rays and give him a physical exam ($120). They're pretty confident that the sharp object in the x-ray is an extra, 14th, floating rib. Yup, that's right. Your dog should only have 13 ribs on each side. My freakish dog has an extra rib on only his left side. Not a sewing needle. I played with parasitic poop (I love alliteration) for nothing. And spent between $700-$800 for nothing. Had sob sessions, skipped meals, and slept on the sofa for nothing. What about the bloody vomit, you ask? Yeah, who knows? Maybe the parasite just had his system upside-down. They'd be worried if it happened a second time, or if he were having trouble with any of those bodily functions that I've been watching, forcing, scooping, and squishing. But that's all going extremely well, even for a healthy dog. Considering he's a dog with a parasite, he's in stellar shape.

The moral of this story? Trust your Dyson and your Dog. If your dog is well-trained and your vacuum cleaner is top-of-the-line, and you give both the proper amount of exercise, then your dog probably doesn't have a sharp object piercing through his vital organs. Cost of discovering Lego's spare rib? $1000. Knowing that my pup is healthy? PRICELESS. :-)