Holidays tales from the vet ER

You may recall that I spent both Thanksgiving night and Christmas night last year in the ER with Rebel, who had a foxtail the first time and a cut foot the second. (He's gone now, and I only wish he was here to make me spend the holidays in the vet ER this year, too!)



I was talking with our own Dr. Tony Johnson about what it was like being an ER vet over the holidays, and thought I'd write a column about it for SFGate.com. And then I thought, I bet our Pet Connection readers have spent a holiday night or two at the ER with their animals! So, have ya? Anyone have a story you'd like to share for my column?



Post here, either your story or your desire to be interviewed, and I'll email you.



Oh, and I forgot to mention, telling me about this will guarantee you will not end up at the ER this year. I promise. ;)

Comments

[JenniferJ]

I've had two holiday ER vet trips.



One was my own girl on New Years Eve/Day as it started at 11:00 and ended at 4:00AM. Second and final litter, went into labor around 6:00PM New Years Eve, then stopped, completely. So we ended up with an emergency c-section at a tiny little rural ER because of a "T-boned" pair of pups with just myself, the vet and the hubby to do everything including anesthesia for mom and revive 8 pups as the receptionist, the only other person present, was "grossed out". The vet rocked, and reinforcements arrived as the last pup started to cry. It was a shoestring operation but they worked their asses off and were great.



5 minutes after we all staggered home, my regular vet called to see if she was showing any signs of labor. :-)



Second occasion was 4th of July weekend. A rescue call about a dog with a "shattered beyond repair" leg at an ER an hour from my house. I drove down to find she had been there since the previous day, with no treatment. At all. Zip, zilch, nada. No IV, no splint, no pain relief. The clinician complained she was smelly and said they had not medicated her or treated her as they had had no promise from rescue to cover any costs ( I had given them my personal credit card when they called me, but in the three hours since they still had done nothing). I grabbed her and raced to my regular clinic where she received basic care including treatment for shock, dehydration, pain and her first actual radiograph showing a very reparable fracture. She had to spend the next day, the holiday Sunday, at yet another ER, which was the only one open which I trusted. They were great. On Monday she was stable had her leg plated in the morning and came home with me the next day. In her case, two of the three veterinary clinics (one regular, one ER) were great. The other ER was utterly horrifying.



I am off to my vet tomorrow as my old boy seems a little "off" and I am trying to head off a Christmas ER trip if at all possible! So Christie, I hope you can keep that promise. :)

[JenniferJ]

OK Christie, just tried to post here and it got eaten.

[Gina Spadafori]

Found and liberated. It was between the Viagra spam and the NY Escorts spam. I guess if you're going to use the latter, you need the former.



Thank heavens I do not know either for a fact. :)

[Leslie K]

2 years ago on New Years Eve Trooper [75 lb lab mix] got into the dark chocolate coconut macaroons & ate an entire tray of them ! Probably about 2 dozen large cookies. Had to call 3 places to get the right amount of hydrogen peroxide for his size & it took 45 minutes to make him vomit. Was afraid too much had gotten into his system by then,so off we went to the closest ER vet for charcoal ! The ER vet was great & our new vet was out on an emergency,but his wife went to the clinic & got the dosage for me. Couldn't get through on the poison line & the old vets office would only tell me go to an ER an hour away. Just 1 of the reasons they aren't our current vet anymore !

[Anne]

I don't think we've ended up at the ER, but Christmas Eve a few years ago our male cockatiel got outside- took 8 hours for him to finally get cold enough (in MN) and tired enough (he kept flying higher and farther in a large circle around our house) to finally snag him out of a neighbor's tree after dark. During his escape he dodged a red tailed hawk that was drawn to his screams of anxiety- we called him Hedwig Hawk Bane over the next few weeks.

[Snoopys Friend]

When I had my Boxer - one Christmas I baked dozens of chocolate chip cookies and put them on the table to cool. Then we went to visit friends and when we came home - there were no cookies in sight - not even a crumb.



Didn't seem to bother our Koda. Thank goodness.

[Katie Bruesewitz]

3 years ago today, our first Flat-Coat, Kody had been "off" for a few days and when he skipped breakfast for the second time in a week we decided to have him seen at our regular vet to get him started on antibiotics or whatever it was he needed before heading into the holiday weekend. The appointment led to a series of tests and he was left at the clinic for the day. The vet called us at about 3:00, and we answered expecting to go pick him and the required meds up. Instead we were told that an abdominal ultrasound showed a large and concerning mass on the spleen. Surgery, if we consented to it, needed to be done NOW. Of course we consented, and we drove into town to wait at the clinic. When we got there, Kody was in surgery, and shortly afterwards, the vet (not our regular) came in to gravely tell us that the mass was hemangiosarcoma, that the liver was also involved and to ask us if we wanted them to bring Kody out of anesthesia or let him go. No way were we ready to let him go...I couldn't even consider walking in the OR to see him for the last time limp and full of tubes and say goodbye to him like that. When he came out of surgery, we were told that due to the holiday weekend, when he was stable (ie in an hour or so) we'd need to transport him to the local emergency clinic for overnight monitoring as there would be no staff in the clinic after closing. We sat in the recovery area with him and I really wondered if we'd made the right choice in keeping him with us. We were supposed to be at my in-laws for my husband's family Christmas dinner while all this was going on....we made a tearful stop at their house to borrow their minivan so we could lift Kody in more easily. I sat on the floor of the van holding his poor groggy head up on the drive to the emergency clinic. We got him checked in and sat with him for a bit and he was in really rough shape. Knowing that he had a horrible cancer lurking inside probably made it seem much worse. After a horrible and mostly sleepless night, the emergency clinic called around 7 a.m. and told us that he was perking up, ate a little and that we could pick him up later in the morning on the 24th. The thumping of his tail wagging like crazy against the counter as he waited for the tech to open the dutch door and let him get to us was music to our ears when we went to get him. It felt like some corny Christmas miracle made for TV movie. We skipped church and any family events to just stay home all Christmas Eve and Day to watch him and spoil him. 3 weeks later he was well enough for us to have a planted chukkar hunt on the farm for him as his last hunting adventure. He succumbed to the liver mets a few months later but I never regretted doing the surgery and making the choice to give him a few more months and to say goodbye properly.

[Rori]

I have a happy ending holiday ER story, but it happened a few days before Christmas, not on the holiday itself. It involves a UPS Christmas package from a relative containing scented soaps and a 1 lb box of Frango Mints; peroxide; and a trip to the ER that ended with me overhearing someone in the waiting room saying "Boy, it really smells GOOD in here." I'm kinda busy, but if I have a chance I'll write it up and post here. If it sounds like something you're interested in, Christie, email me. I can talk WAY faster than I can type..

[Diane]

The Christmas after my now teenage son was born, what with the time constraints of baby care, we didn't get aound to putting up the tree until late at night on Dec. 23. My husband was performing the holiday ritual of spreading the lights out on the carpet and trying to untangle them. Our cat Eliot wandered over to supervise, sniffed the bulbs, crunched down on one, and started coughing. My husband rushed him off to the animal emergency clinic while I stayed home with the baby. The vet called me several hours later to tell me they had done some kind of imaging of Eliot's entire digestive tract, didn't see any fragments of light bulb, so she didn't think he had actually swallowed anything. By the time my husband brought him home early on Christmas eve morning, Eliot was none the worse for wear, but we couldn't say the same of the checking account.



Eliot lived for several more years and died a natural death. I'm still a little surprised I didn't kill him that night. :)

[Christie Keith]

Thanks so much, everyone! I had to go with the Frango mints... and a story from Dr. Johnson that will blow your minds!



Have a SAFE and Happy Holiday with your pets and families!