I should know better

Well, not so merry here, as I have two invalids.

The other day,, when I went to let out the puppies, Sparkle was staggering.  He rapidly got worse.  After phoning around for help, which I couldn`t get, I packed the collapsed puppy in a dogbox and set off up the road.  (I have to walk about half a mile to civilisation, where I can get a taxi.)   By the time I got to the vet, I was too breathless to speak.

The vet was doubtful, and said “I think it is neurological”.  These are not words you want to hear.  However, she put him on a drip and went off to do bloodwork.  I went off to get a hot coffee to pick me up a little.

And then came the phone call.  His blood sugar, she said, “was through the floor”.   He had had a hypo.

I have read about this.  It happens in toy puppies between six and eleven weeks, usually with no apparent cause.  Suddenly they have hypoglycaemia.  And it is a very urgent emergency.  But within an hour I had another call, saying he was sitting up and taking interest, and in another hour was told he was wagging his tail and eating his dinner and could go home.

And he has been fine since.   But I now feed him little and often, and watch him all the time.

i had to take him back the next week for his blood to be checked, and I took Ella as well, as she had a sore eye, hoping for eye ointment.

Now, I should explain that I had gone to the Expensive Vet, not my usual, simply because it was by far the nearest in an emergency.   I didn`t suppose Ella was an emergency.   Imagine my horror when the vet, one known for his pessimism, said she needed an urgent operation “or she could lose the eye”, and carried her off then and there to do it.   I suspect that an eye ulcer could have been treated otherwise, but what could I say?





So now I have an invalid for Christmas.   Ella, I should say, is not at all amenable to eye drops at all, let alone 6 times a day, but by now we have got past the screaming, fighting and eye bugging stage.   We are resigned to it.  I however, am less than resigned to the bill.  I will be paying this off forever.  

I hope your Christmas is suitably merry, and free from incident – and vets!