With a Side of Hope

Hi there!  I am so sorry about my lack of postings.  There has been a lot that has been going on in my life and my family’s life that is making it a little difficult now to blog frequently.  I am hoping that after today, I will be on more of a blogging schedule because I really do miss it!  I miss all of you.  I am still reading your blogs even though I haven’t been updating mine as frequently.  I also promise that I will be recapping our honeymoon and wedding.  I am going to set my mind to start it sometime this week/weekend.  The disc with our wedding photos will be in the mail soon so I need to recap our rehearsal dinner and honeymoon before I do our wedding.  So stay tuned for that.

I want to start off by saying thank you so much for all of your support regarding Oliver.  It really does mean a lot to me and my family.  I’m going to go into more detail as to what happened and how last week was the week from hell.  On Tuesday of last week, Oliver was getting operated on to remove stones from his bladder.  It is a big surgery but we have been told that it was routine.  His surgery took a very long time.  He was in there for at least 3 hours.  They were supposed to operate on him in the early morning and they made him sit and wait all day until the late afternoon until they started operating.  We were told that he was doing well and we could pick him up on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Melissa and our dad went to pick him up and bring him home.  My mom, Mike and I were anxiously awaiting his arrival at their house.  When Oliver came home, he was in so much pain.  He didn’t look like himself.  He was badly bruised under his belly.  We were told that he threw up several times.  He would barely drink anything let alone eat anything.  He kept whimpering and crying.  He wouldn’t go to the bathroom either.  It was really hard to watch.

Thursday I went into work feeling really uneasy about things.  Melissa and I were talking all morning and she decided that it would be best if we brought him to the vet because something was not right.  I left work early and we took him to the vet.  It was hard carrying him because he was in so much pain. We felt really bad.  They decided to do blood work and take x-rays.  He had acupuncture which is another story in itself.   It resulted in him almost swallowing needles!  Not a good idea.  So they said they wanted to keep him there for several hours to give him iv fluids and that we could come by later to see the test results.

Melissa, our mom and I went back and we were told that he was in kidney failure!  We had no clue how this happened because he was perfectly fine despite his bladder stones!  We instantly started crying and holding him.  At this point, we transferred him to the emergency vet where they could take better care of him.  They were going to monitor him through the night and give him fluids and medicine.  The next morning they were going to take an ultrasound to see what was causing the kidney failure.  We didn’t get home until almost 11pm that night. It was a very long day.

Friday comes around, and I had a really bad feeling when I woke up.  I didn’t want to go to work because I had a bad feeling but I pushed myself to go.  I went in and told my supervisor what was going on and that I might need to leave early once we hear from the doctor.  Not even 5 minutes after I spoke to him, my phone rang.  It was one of the worst phone calls I ever heard in my life.

I walked outside and sat on the patio at my work.  The doctor said Oliver was the sickest dog in the hospital.  He was a lot worse than what we thought. He was going through severe kidney failure and something needed to be done before the afternoon.  She saw from the ultrasound that it looked like his bladder might have been stitched up wrong and he could need another surgery or we could decide to not put him through anything else and put him to sleep.  I couldn’t stop crying.  I told my supervisor and ran out of the building crying.  I instantly made all of my phone calls to Melissa, my mom, my dad and Mike.  We needed to come together and meet at the hospital to decide what to do.

When we got there, we were able to see Oliver and he looked terrible.  We felt so incredibly bad for him.  We decided to go along with the surgery if it was going to save his life.  Let me tell you, we waited and waited and waited in the waiting room for him all day long.  Finally, the doctor came out and said that the vet had botched the surgery!  He tied off Oliver’s ureter’s from entering his kidneys to produce urine which is why he couldn’t go to the bathroom!!!  That is why he was in kidney failure.  His kidneys were fine!  They restitched him properly and had to reconstruct one of his ureter’s because the vet broke it.  I couldn’t believe everything that Oliver went through!  They said he was producing urine and that he was doing well.

They had to wait for his levels to come back to normal and that we could see him in a few hours.  I was so relieved and thankful.  We weren’t out of the woods yet.  We still had to wait and see once he woke up.  All of us went back later that night, and saw him.  I’ve never seen a dog like that in my life.  He was hooked up to all kinds of tubes, resting his head on a pillow and wrapped in a blanket. He looked so peaceful.  They said he was doing great and was passing urine.  We couldn’t be more happy!

The next couple of days he continued to do better and better.  We are actually able to take him home today!  Last night when Melissa and I saw him, he was back to his old self.  I just cannot believe everything that he has gone through.  We were so close to loosing him.  He was on his death bed and was going to die on Friday.  If it wasn’t for the surgery, a healthy dog would have been put to sleep.

My family and I are so thankful for the emergency vet.  The doctors and the surgeon saved Oliver’s life and for that we will be forever grateful.  Oliver is being watched over by angel, I’m sure.  It’s a miracle that he has come so far after everything that he went through.  He really means so much to all of us and is a huge part of our lives.  Our life would not be the same without him.  He truly is our special angel.  Take a moment today, to hug your pet and tell you how much you love them.  I know I will.

I love you Oliver!

Oliver <3

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