Sunday Saga

Yesterday was a complete and utter disaster. I got up at 10 and couldn't find Bella. Mom had let her and Beethoven out so I thought maybe she'd snuck back out since she has this bad habit of coming inside then shooting back out the door & you never realize that she's out until later. We promptly flipped out it was extremely cold outside and she's so small. After tearing the house apart we found her under the recliner hiding, which was strange. I finally got her out and she got sick & wasn't acting right. We called the vet and the vet thought maybe she'd ate something she wasn't supposed to and was just passing it. After about 4 hours I realized we had a bigger problem then her just eating something. It was sleeting & snowing outside and I wanted to go to the vet before it got too bad. As soon as we got to the vet & I took Bella out of the carrier she had a bowel movement from the stress of the vets office. The vet immediately said, "She has parvo, that's the number one sign of it" & I started crying.

We always get our dogs vaccinated but because of my job issues I've not had the money to get them done so she'd only had the first round of puppy shots. I was planning on taking her this Friday when I got my first check since going full time (because I only get paid once a month). Well needless to say I was upset that a simple vaccination could have prevented this whole ordeal and that she could die because of it. The vet gave her a shot to keep a secondary infection from coming in and killing her. She also said because Bella was still able to stand up and move around plus she wasn't dehydrated yet that she had a 50/50 chance if she made it through the night then if she made it to today she had a 75% chance of making it. The vet also said there'd been an outbreak of it recently which was abnormal since it's winter....

I left with orders to get pedialyte and to give her a syringe full of it hourly until she urinated then I could do it every four hours, needless to say I knew I was in for a long night. We headed to Wal-Mart which was right down the road to get the pedialyte and headed home. Well it was snowing extremely hard and the roads were a mess by the time we got home we couldn't get up our hill. After going to the police department and getting no help from them & then trying to get up either way to our house for an hour we weren't very happy. Eventually we called my Uncle Joe who lives a few houses down from us and he came down and pulled us up the hill.

When we finally got home & I got Bella out I was surprised to find she had only had one accident in the carrier and we'd been in the car for quite awhile. We got her settled and began her hourly dose of pedialyte. I went to bed around 11:30 and mom & dad stayed up giving Bella the pedialyte til 4am then dad woke me up and I took over. Finally around 9am Bella had to pee & we began the every 4 hour dosage instructions. I made her a poached egg which she gobbled down at around 9:30am and she went number 2 at 11am. I was ecstatic. I called the vet and let her know what was going on and all she could say was "I'm impressed! You did so well". I cried again. She said to keep giving Bella bland foods for the rest of the day and that tomorrow she could start her normal diet and to keep the stress on her to a minimum for another 3-4 days. Then in 2 weeks she can get her vaccination. Needless to say I feel like it's all been a dream. She's doing really well & I'm just happy she's ok. I don't want to be to optimistic but I think she's going to be fine.

Yesterday I couldn't stop crying because I knew a simple shot could have prevented the entire ordeal but I also know that we weren't able to do it financially. I'm just glad my little buddy is ok :)