Swellings

8 Jun 2008, 5pm

(You’ll need to be a dog person to get through this.)

When Oliver was struck with the canine horrorshow that is Volvulus – in which a dog’s stomach flips and ties off at both ends – almost five years ago, the shock and aftershock of just how immediate the problem was never wore off. We were lucky that everything worked out, but in the time since two constants have remained: my awe at the patient competence of the vets who treated the problem that Sunday night, and my inability to stop looking at my dog as ready to expire at any second. This manifests itself in a sort of manic parental over-protectiveness, the irritating qualities of which Herself has no trouble pointing out. I find this irritating in turn.

Anyway, barring some unpleasantness with a stick in early 2006 and the occasional cut and bruise, Oliver’s been fine the past five years. And then on Friday morning we woke to find that after seven years of pretty reliable house-training he had, shall we say, let one drop in the bedroom. He spent the morning walking around hunched over, moaning through his nose and generally looking supremely pissed off. Didn’t want to eat or drink, and out on the walk he just kept straining his hindquarters and turning around to point us back home.

I knew it couldn’t be Volvulus again, because his stomach wasn’t swollen, and assumed that, since his digestive system was clearly working, there must be something working its way through, probably something he’d found in the garbage, happens all the time. Anyone can be both overprotective and blasé about what can and will pass through a dog. Here’s me cracking wise like an idiot about it as it happened.

To be sure, we went to see the vet in town, an experience that always delivers the odd, first because no one else is ever there and because he and his wife/assistant both have crazy crazy eyes. He did a quick once-over, said Oliver’s temperature was up, but no visible problems with his prostate or digestive system, and agreed wholeheartedly that there was just something slowly making its way through. Call me later.

On Friday afternoon there was a bounceback; Oliver got all energetic again, seemed to want to eat, drank some water. Whew, in the clear. And then through the night he got worse. And worse. In the morning we went into the vet, who still looked stymied, but finally suggested we go see the other vet in town (there was another vet?) for an ultrasound. Calls were made, previously administered medicines communicated, off we went.

Holy Fuck, it was like finding a vast library hidden behind a comic book store. The place was booming with women carrying cats in cages (though, it became clear, most were there just to flirt and bat eyes at the Self-Styled Renaissance Vet with whom we were about to meet).

Self-Styled Renaissance Vet whisked us in to a massive gleaming exam room, sort of a shrine to himself and his love for animals, his published volumes of poetry and philosophy, his degrees in artificial insemination and (I’m not kidding) tortoise surgery, and his INEVITABLE rumpled rugged good looks. We told him what the other vet’s opinions were, to which he sort of politely rolled his eyes, as though clearing up the other guy’s mistakes is part of his daily routine, and, giving Oliver a quick look over, reported how grave the situation clearly was, and that thinking an animal this dehydrated, in this much pain, was merely passing something awkward would be a fatal mistake. I decided we had a new vet. We left Oliver there at his clinic, and last night we waited, got a couple courteous update phonecalls, and goofed around with Hugo, who was amazed at his sudden status as top dog in the house.

The crux of this story is that the (now ex-) vet was able to say, with confidence, that there was nothing wrong with Oliver’s prostate. The (now) vet informed us this morning that the ENTIRE PROBLEM was a severe prostate infection, which had, by the time we arrived there, already led to peritonitis and the beginnings of blood sepsis, which is just about as urgent and dangerous as it gets. Overnight they’d treated it with such speed and skill we were able to pick him up today, and he’s now home, with prescriptions for a two-month course of treatment, but should be fine. I am exhausted.

And how was your weekend.

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