Kalia the invalid

So, she is well on her way to mending. We’re still lugging her 60# self up and down stairs and up and down stairs but otherwise she is getting around pretty well. She is supposed to be confined to a space no more than five times her body length so she is restless to say the least. I took the dressing off and that is when we had to put the cone on as the licker then went to work. Below are better pictures of her fractures that the vet actually surprisingly emailed us. If you want to be grossed out more just click on the photo to enlarge.

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Sorry it's blurry but I was laughing a tad watching her try to eat...

Sorry it's blurry but I was laughing a tad watching her try to eat...

Oh, Crappy Day

I just need to say I had a crappy day today. And, I love my mom. Weird, I know to write those two sentences back to back.

We checked out of the hotel this morning (STAYCATION OFFICIALLY OVER!), I had an abused patient this morning in the clinic, I picked Kalia up in Omaha as I mentioned below and money is NOT GOOD right now and then I just had a run-in with someone puking up spaghetti (sorry for the visual but that is what happens in medicine).

And, we are now at home as I mentioned. The SAME home that I love at times but despise at others, such as now. I look around and wonder what did we do? Why did we buy this place? And, how has my mother kept it in her to come here each day to help us with it? She is here early in the morning and staying until late in the evening. She is working, cleaning, fixing, loving…whatever she can do and all I could do tonite when she left is cry.

So, I end this day with a prayer to God for strength. Strength for my patients that are weak. Strength for my family, especially my husband and my mother. And, strength for me so I don’t give up because I REALLY want to.

Miss Kalia

So I went to the hospital in Omaha this evening to pick up Kalia. They all loved her, at least they acted like they did while I was there! After I settled the bill with the promise that they get to keep my first two children I got to see her. She whimpered for several minutes straight and was just so happy to see me.

Surprisingly she is walking really well. She has a big bulky dressing on that I can take off next week and we need to keep her corraled, no stairs, etc. She has a duragesic pain patch on that I am supposed to take off on Saturday and get this: the dose is 75mcg!!!!! For those of you that do not know, that would put me out for several several days. I’m thinkin’….no wonder the dog can walk she has no feeling what-so-ever! And, they tell me…”she’s eating soft food ok and hasn’t had any problems with her pills but is a little nauseated from the pain patch”. Hmmmm. Well, a piece of ham, a piece of cheese, a piece of bread and a can of puppy food later……I still had to jam her pills down her throat.

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One plate and 8 screws later

She is lying there whimpering and you can hear her stomach rolling and she is urping…yes, urping. I’m going to let her sleep tonite comfortably and the patch will have to go tomorrow. They gave me some pain pills to give her too so we’ll just have to switch. That is just what I need, an urpy dog that has to be forced fed, watered, etc when I can’t even remember the last time I actually was able to cook a meal for my own husband and myself!

Headin' home at last!

Headin' home at last!

Her little whimpering and sad little face do make me feel bad though. I am a schmuck owner for even allowing a situtation to occur where this happened. So, here we are way more money later than is legal for me to post on here and I have a hurt puppy that needs a lot of tlc and help for EIGHT WEEKS! Did I mention she can’t go up and down stairs ~oh~ and that we have A LOT of stairs in our home and out to the yard as well?!!!!

Our sweet girl, Kalia

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When it rains it pours. Last night at the hotel the dogs got away from me (they spend the days in the backyard at the house and nights with us in the hotel. At any rate, I couldn’t get them to come back and Adam and I drove around and around trying to find them for quite some time. Amazingly Holly found her way back to us at the hotel. We never did find Kalia. We looked and looked and went to bed sickened that we couldn’t find her. We decided to leave the gate to our backyard open in case she found her way home.

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At 6:30 this am Adam drove to the house to see if she found her way home and she had. She had also gotten through the doggy door and up the four steps into the mudroom. Adam walked in and her tail started wagging. But, her leg was hanging.

Kalia got hit by a car sometime during the night. She was dehydrated and in shock. She has road rash all over and a pulmonary contusion on the right side (bruised right lung). Both of her leg bones in her front left leg were broken very badly and poked through her skin. Adam didn’t realize this at first he just knew her leg wasn’t right and he scooped her up and put her in the car and came to me at the hotel. We didn’t even take her out of the car…he just took off for Lincoln to the Veterinary Medical Center we use.

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Our vet could not treat this severe of a fracture and initially talked about sending us to K State’s Vet hospital (ugh!!!) but there happened to be a K State Orthopedic Surgeon that is board certified in Omaha today! So she called him to find out if he’d see Kalia and she came in to tell us the estimate of what it would most likely cost. This is kind of when I finally decided to lose it. The poor vet, I just cried…dripping all over Kalia’s head. It just seems like one thing after another right now. And, financially my gosh!!!! Well, what do you do…we went to Omaha and he is awesome. (note: right about now my sister is probably thinking to herself, you two need to have a kid) He really wanted to do surgery on her today but because of the dehydration and her lung could not. He is quite concerned about the risk of infection with the bone having gone through the skin. She will have a plate and 6 screws placed hopefully tomorrow if she is stable enough.

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Resting (or shall we say drugged) in the backseat on the way to Omaha

We are in awe that she found her way home. What amazing instinct these animals have. And, her tail…Adam says she was just a wagging it away when she saw him come to her.

The calorie content of paper

Monthly update on Philly’s diet

This past month was impressive. The vet told us that his weight loss would be slow initially and then pick up…man, was she right!!! He started at 24lbs when he came to stay with us and in my last post about his diet he had lost only one pound. We decided that today would be a good “weigh-day”.

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He is struggling still with the whole paper issue…ie: the pictures and has figured out how to get the lid off of our cat’s food storage container. We’ve used this same container for the past decade and have NEVER had any cat get the lid off but I guess if one is hungry enough…one will succeed. We now need to store the entire container away in a cupboard.

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Notice him licking his lips...

Notice him licking his lips...

I feel like we need to help him celebrate or something because he is now at 19lbs. Yep..he has lost 5lbs!!! I mean, geesh..that is 20% of his body weight…

I am just glad that the expensive food the vet is having us buy ($50 a bag) is finally paying off. Only 10 more pounds to go, big guy…