Friday, May 16th, 2007 - Queen Vicki's Birthday Long Weekend

Dearest Bloggy!!

Happy Queen Vicki's Birthday!!! Hahaha... WHY we still celebrate a long, dead Queen Victoria's birthday is beyond me, although it's great to have a long weekend so any excuse is a good excuse. But what is particularly thrilling about this one is that Vancouver and the surrounding area is FINALLY getting the weather they deserve and is so long overdue!! SUN SUN SUN!!! And warmth, warmth, warmth!!! Temps are going to get up into the high 20Cs (mid - upper 80Fs)!!! Yipppeee!!

Now, the reason I'm running into bloggy for a few seconds on this gorgeous day is to report on my little darling Bridget since folk are sending emails to see how she is doing. I guess, I kind of mislead people into thinking she had a little tummy bug...nothing serious. Well, maybe that's what it appeared to be at the time I wrote the blog entry, but it turned out I had one VERY sick little schnauzer for a 24 hour period. She was violently ill starting at midnight on Wednesday... having already had bouts of diarrhea and vomiting earlier in the day. Our timing was off too because Bridget's Vet, Dr. Joan, was out of town for a few days... but the clinic was fabulous since the girls there all know Bridget. And we got to meet Dr. Dirk (ok, Dirk is his first name, but I can't pronounce his last name, so he is Dr. Dirk) yesterday.

We still don't know what caused her to be so violently ill. If she actually had picked up and ate something on one of the walks, although I didn't see her do that, nor did Jenn or Toby when they took her out. She DOES eat grass a lot but not to make herself sick... but because she loves grass. I did notice Tuesday morning she was eating a lot more grass than normal and I kept making her stop, but she was bound and determined... so whatever this was may have actually started Tuesday.

Anywho... starting at midnight, she was vomiting violently every hour or so, so I was up all night with her, changing towels/bedding, making a huge pile of laundry to do. Hahaha... as I'm typing this, I'm STILL doing laundry, although I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now... one more load and I should be totally caught up with every towel and linens having been cleaned :)

She stopped vomiting yesterday morning at 7:30am, but was one tired puppy. I took her in to the clinic in the morning because she didn't seem to be interested in drinking anything... her poor tummy was just too sore and worn out. Of course, wouldn't you know it.. as soon as we went into the clinic she went right for their water bowl :) Dr. Dirk did a thorough examination of her and he was so gentle and sweet with her. He said that she did appear to be somewhat dehydrated so gave her an injection of 100cc's of saline solution just under the skin (her body would absorb it and this was easier on her than hooking her up to an IV and giving her a saline drip for a couple of hours. That was going to be one of the options... that I leave her there and they do this, but Dr. Dirk didn't seem to think that would be necessary... that she would probably start feeling better very quickly with the 100cc's. He also gave her an anti-nausea injection which would make her feel better that she would not be feeling that sick to the tummy feeling and gave her an injection of antibiotics just to be on the safe side.

By the time we left the office, she was getting back to her little diva self! Of course, she was very tired and sleep is a good thing. I kept her with me all day... we went to the TUTS office in Stanley Park and I had her bed, blanket and packed some chicken and rice for her. I had to slowly introduce her tummy back to food, so chicken and rice is nice and bland, but still appealing to her senses. I gave her a spoonful every hour and her tummy kept it down. When we got home, she got half a cup, and her tummy did well on that and she was quite content with that. I gave her a half cup this morning and will be packing up some to take this afternoon.

Dr. Joan called this morning to see how she's doing... and advised to continue feeding small amounts throughout the day. Even if it means she's getting somewhat less than her normal amount of food, it's better to do it this way in small amounts for the next couple of days.

But I'm pleased to say, she is doing just fine today... and the danger/scare is now over :)

As for me... I don't have a date yet for the surgery, but the admin gal at the surgeon's office said to call back on Tuesday and she will get the information from Dr. Meneghetti (he was in surgery yesterday and today and of course, this is the long weekend)... so hopefully I'll find out on Tuesday when the date will be. I still have a thousand things I want to get done before the surgery date... which I'm sure is going to be that first week in June.

Ok... enough babble!! I am going to get that load of laundry out of the dryer and then Bridget and I are off to enjoy this gorgeous, gorgeous weather!!

Ciao!

Cheryl