Saturday, June 18, 2005
Sore
So we pulled into the animal hospital at exactly 1:59 - talk about good timing! But, like most hospitals, we had to sit there and wait anxiously while they took their sweet time getting our final invoice ready, taking our payment, and arranging for a tech to come and give us release instructions. My palms were sweating and I was a nervous wreck for an entire 35 minutes before they brought her out. Meanwhile, a bunch of yuppies arrived either dropping off or picking up their dogs, who all had their tails wagging. Not too depressing, right? Not until a couple came in (sans pet) and the woman was crying. They went back outside after quietly speaking to the receptionist and a few minutes later, two men followed them out carrying a stretcher. Oh no. I didn't want to see a horribly ill pet that had to be carried in on a stretcher. Imagine the thoughts it put in my head about Cambie. I don't know what happened to him, but a beautiful German Shepherd was carried in on stretcher and, according to Huz because I went all the way across the room to avoid seeing him, his tongue was out and eyes open - D.O.A. How devastating. The couple left about 15 minutes later with the woman just sobbing. This did not help our wait for Cambie AT ALL.They finally brought her out and she was in her carrier just staring into space. I sat in the back seat with her all the way home (40 loooong minutes) and she barely looked at me. It was so sad. She was even all the way back in the carrier, as far away from me as possible. When we were home and I lugged her up our three flights of stairs, she began to move from the rear of the carrier to the front. She was practically head butting the carrier door when I put her in the living room. I let her out and she immediately left the cage and started rubbing on us and kissing us. She was clearly glad to be home.
Her little shaved belly is a sad sight to behold - she has a long incision with sutures and I'm still finding random shaved areas on her arms. She is in pain and has trouble lying down to sleep. She's so pathetic that she started falling asleep sitting up, so I piled a blanket next to her so she could kind of lean over and sleep. Instead, she started licking her bum and she actually fell asleep like that - leg straight in the air. Then, she let out a heartbreaking, painful moan and fell like a freshly cut tree over onto the blanket (timber!). It was so sad and so cute at the same time. She's been sleeping in that position for about an hour now. I hope she sleeps a lot because then I don't worry about her licking her sutures, which we have to prevent her from doing. Keep her in your thoughts because she's in a lot of pain. I'm so glad she's home (and so is she).
I'll post pics of her later. |
