Our beautiful happy girl on August 15th, 2015
Since it was the loss of Ophelia, and the reason we lost her, that prompted me to make this blog, I guess my first posts here should be about her last days with us. This first post is about the day she got sick. Our lives will never be the same.
Ophelia was almost exactly 9 years old, I adopted her in April of 2007 when she was a very small puppy, she got bigger than I had anticipated, so she might have been as young as 6 weeks or even less when I adopted her at the shelter. Ophelia was a border collie and Labrador retriever mix, according to the pound I adopted her from in Amarillo, TX., although I always questioned that, I think she may have been part cattle dog or something, as well. I always wanted to do the DNA test to see what all breeds she has, but it was expensive, and I never did. I really wish that I had.
She had always been pretty healthy all of her life, she did have some digestion issues here and there throughout the years, but nothing serious. The past year she'd had some skin issues, she got a staph infection twice on her belly for some reason. But, she hadn't gotten very sick and needed to be hospitalized, before.
On March 30, 2016, I had been up all night, as usual. I was in a bad habit of staying up all night playing video games, I'd wait until the sun was coming up and take Ophelia and Abby for a walk, then go to bed. Ophelia was usually tired from the morning walk, and would sleep in bed with me for the morning and better part of the afternoon, sometimes waking up to bark at noises outside, or get up to tackle the door if anyone had come up.
The sky started to barely get light outside at around 6 AM. I usually waited until the sun was fully up before walking them, but Ophelia had been oddly restless all night, up and down a lot. At around 3-4 AM I had eaten something and tried to give Ophelia a treat when she didn't want to lick the container. She wouldn't take it. I tried to give her some peanut butter. She wouldn't touch it. That was weird because she loved her treats and peanut butter. So instead of waiting until after 7 AM when the sun would fully be up, I decided to take them for a walk at about 6:20 AM, thinking maybe she'd been up all night because she needed to go potty.
I called to them to go out, getting my jacket on, and Abigail (Abby, for short) came running, but Ophelia didn't. I called again. Nothing. I got worried and went into the bedroom to find her. I looked at the bed first because she almost always slept in bed with us and my boyfriend Derek was sleeping still. She wasn't there. I had a bad feeling and I then looked at the dog beds and she was on the one at the foot of the bed, just laying there, with her head up. I coaxed her to get up to go outside, she was VERY slow and she felt VERY cold. My bad feeling got worse and when I got her to the front door I noticed her pupils were very large and looked cloudier than usual. Her tail and ears were down, which was extremely out of character for her, as she loved to go outside. She had an expression that said "I don't feel good and I'm scared Mom" and I just knew that something was very wrong. I got down and checked her gums, to my horror they were pale. I started to panic when I felt out cold she was all over. Her lips and snout were cold, and I know how bad of a sign this is, and Ophelia was always a very warm dog, she hated the heat because she was already warm naturally.
I knew something was very badly wrong with my Ophelia.
I tried to kid myself and thought, maybe she just needs to walk around a bit, so I got her leashed up, I tried to coax her to go outside, thinking she was sick and needed to go potty. She very slowly walked the short distance to the stairs and wouldn't go down them. I called Abby back up the stairs, I got Ophelia and Abby inside, I got Ophelia situated on the couch. I turned on the lights so I could get a better look at her and she looked terrible. She looked so weak and her gums were white. I would learn later that she was in shock.
I didn't realize she was actually in shock at the time, but I knew her current state was BAD. I started to really lose it and called up the vet. I was so scared that my baby was dying right in front of me. I was crying on the phone telling them what was wrong, they said she needed to come in right away, which I knew, I just didn't know when. The vet would be there at 8 AM to treat her as an emergency, they told me. Derek woke up, hearing me on the phone, asking what was wrong. I was crying more and telling him that Ophelia was sick and I didn't know what was wrong and that we needed to take her in at 8. He said okay, and started getting dressed. I asked him to sit with her while I took Abby out to go potty. Abby really hated doing anything without Ophelia and getting her to go outside without Ophelia was not easy. She picked a nearby grassy spot to pee and then forcibly pulled the leash back to the house. She got up on the couch to check on Ophelia as soon as we got in. I gave Abby a treat and put her in her crate. Derek carried Ophelia down the stairs to the truck. I am SO thankful he is strong enough to do that because I am not. I sat in the backseat with her the whole way to the vet's, trying not to cry and failing miserably.
We got to the vet's at around 7:44 AM and had to wait. It felt like we had to wait for hours. Ophelia was just so weak and so sick. We ended up getting out of the car and trying to go in a little early, they came and unlocked the door to let us in. They got us in an exam room. We had to wait more. I had brought Ophelia's blanket with us and had her wrapped in it. It REALLY bothered me that she was laying on the cold floor on her side. The vet came, looked her over, took her for x-rays on her chest and abdomen, brought her back. Got the x-rays, showed them to us. Nothing out of the ordinary. They took her back for blood work. They kept her in the back saying she's very dehydrated and needed fluids, and we'd have to leave her there. I was immediately devastated. I was scared I was going to lose my baby and not even get to say goodbye. I asked to see her, but they said she can't walk back to the front again, and that they were doing x-rays on another dog so we couldn't go back there. I was beside myself. We left. I cried the entire car ride home. I kinda wanted to just stay there and wait, but I hadn't eaten, or slept, the last thing I'd had was coffee at 4 AM, and we needed to take care of Abby. She needed a proper walk. When we got home Abby didn't even really greet us, she ran around frantically, crying, looking for Ophelia. It broke our hearts.
I was distraught all morning. They had said they would call when they got the blood test results, I was finally freaking out too bad and called them at 10:30 AM to see how she was doing, and to see if they had gotten her blood test results. The vet tech put me on hold, came back, told me the vet hadn't gotten to read the results yet, but they do have them. She said Ophelia was up! I was so happy, she said Ophelia was alert and standing up! I thanked her. I was relieved. That was when I realized how exhausted I was, so I decided to take a nap. The vet ended up calling us back, and telling us that her blood work showed Ophelia's white blood cell count was high, and her pancreas and liver values were high. She said that maybe there's an infection or inflammation in Ophelia's pancreas, liver, or in her lower intestine. So she prescribed antibiotics and some anti-nausea medicine so that Ophelia could eat. We would be able to pick her up after 4 PM. Relieved, I was able to sleep for the remaining time until we went to go pick her up.
In the car on the way home!
I really wish this picture hadn't turned out blurry, but she is still adorable and you can see her little smile.
It was amazing to have them bring a happy, healthy looking Ophelia back to us. She was excited, she wagged her tail furiously, she hopped around a little, she was very vocal, letting out her loud, high-pitched cries of excitement that made us so happy. We got her prescriptions, paid the bill, and took our baby home. I rode in the back with her again, she was tired, I could tell. They said to give her bland food like chicken and rice since they weren't sure what caused the inflammation and/or infection, and to limit exercise, no walks. Unfortunately we live in a condo upstairs with no yard so she would have to walk a little, but we weren't going to take her for the mile-long walks I usually took her and Abby on in the evenings.
When she came home Abby was extremely excited to see her and they started to play a little. But I told Ophelia she needed to rest, no playing! And got her situated on the couch. She seemed exhausted, but happy. She laid on the couch, got lots of attention and love. We were SO happy she was home.
Resting after being at the vet's all day receiving fluids.
She got up to come give me a face that said "I am starving more than I have ever starved in my life" when I was in the kitchen cooking her food, so I gave her some steamed chicken breast and steamed rice, which she gobbled. She looked for more, she was SO hungry. I ended up feeding her again later after a trip outside and she devoured her food again. I was so happy she was eating, I really thought she was going to be okay. Later in the night I was in the kitchen and she still had the same look of "I'm starving please feed me" so I went ahead and fed her again. Looking back on this, I'm glad I fed her when she was hungry every time she was hungry, since she didn't want to eat much come Thursday evening.
While Ophelia seemed weak and tired that night, she seemed MUCH, much better compared to that morning. I was so happy. I really thought life was going to continue on normally. I had no idea we were going to lose her just two days later.
Snuggled on the couch in her blanket, she was so tired.
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