Thursday, May 16, 2013

When Your Heart Stops Beating

No one died!  I know that's a thought that may have crossed your mind reading the title.

I did, however, have a true moment of terror this morning.

I let Qwill, Shiner, Trophy, Demo and Eevee outside this morning to take pictures before breakfast as Eevee is 3 months old today.  Then I realized I forgot my camera battery upstairs and went to retrieve it.  On the way back I freed Pan and Koda from my sister's room, and let the two of them and Baxter out to join the others.  No sooner had I opened the door and the three dogs thundered past at a million miles an hour I hear screaming.  I thought someone had run the puppy over,
so I'm scanning for a little red blob, and I see Qwill  looking crumpled, sitting hump-backed, not putting weight on his left leg and screaming a death wail that I never want to hear again so help me god.  I screamed for help and carried him inside which just made him scream harder.

My mom came over to help me look at him (she's a nurse) and I totally lost it. I started bawling and sobbing and some wailing of my own.

This is my Qwillyman.  This is my heart and soul and he can't die.

He has been acting off all week, he stayed in his kennel Sunday night instead of following us up stairs and when he wouldn't come when I called I had to go get him.  My sister took him to the Chiropractor on Monday with Shiner and one of his hips was badly out of alignment.  So the first thing that popped into my head seeing him holding his paw up is that he had something like osteosarcoma and I was going to lose him.

I'm usually calm and level headed in case of emergency (we've had enough emergency vet trips with Trophy, after all) but Qwill is different.

My mom was able to manipulate his leg and he had pain in his shoulder area but she didn't think it was broken.  So we assumed broken rib.

We couldn't figure out how to move him without hurting him, and eventually he solved the problem by forcing himself to stand up.  He was able to walk to the car, although hunched and short strided, and we hurried him off to the vet.

The vet looked him over and said that they she didn't think anything was broken, just badly bruised. He may have a compressed disc in his spine/neck or a pinched nerve. They couldn't pin point a pain response in one area to warrant x-rays.

So now he is on Rimadyl and Tramadol for pain management and he is on strict crate rest for 5 days (although I let him come out and sleep on a dog bed with me because he's calm and not trying to run around).  We have a recheck on Tuesday.


I told him he's not allowed to scare me like this over a shared meal of McDonald's fries and chicken nuggets.

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