It's All Very Funny Until It Bites You in the Face

Yesterday we shared Bettina's safari adventures thinking (hoping) that was the extent of it.  This is amusing given that was mostly only the beginning of it.

After Bettina had declined her dinner and Mumma posted her essay, we all hoped for a better day tomorrow.  Bettina retired to the now vacated office and remained there for the evening.  I occasionally checked up on her in there and noted that each time, the swelling seemed even worse than it had been at dinner time.  By 9:00p Bettina was burning up and her face was truly alarming.  I took her temperature and found it to be at 104.6.  We called the emergency vet who advised we should come in which we promptly did.

Bettina just after our trip the emergency vet

The vet checked her over and said, "yep, looks like she got bitten."  He took her temperature as well (a fact that she made clear she was not happy about) and found it had risen to 105.5.  He gave her a shot of Metacam and a shot of antibiotic.  He sent us home with oral Metacam and Clavamox.  Mumma expected that we were on the road to recovery.  Indeed when we reached home Bettina seemed a little more lively than before.  She retired immediately to the office and the rest of us went to bed.

In the morning, Bettina came into my bedroom to greet me.  That seemed like a very good sign.  Her swelling looked to have gone down a tiny little bit, but she had developed an odd egg filled with liquid under her jaw.  Mumma began rounds to make sure everything had gone ok.  When we got to the office, poor Bettina had thrown up a number of times all over everything, beds and carpet alike.

When she came in from her potty break she seemed interested in breakfast so I gave her a little bit of yogurt and a tablespoon of kibble mixed in.  She ate it all.  Small victories.  So then I gave her a Clavamox with a little peanut butter.  That went down to.  Except it all came right back up a mere 45 minutes later.

And from there it went downhill with every last drop of bile in her tiny little body finding it's way out the front end.  Now she consecrated the beds, the carpet and the couch cover in the living room.  The last couple times, there was blood in the vomit.  The situation was looking a bit worse and our Spot Bot worked double overtime today.

At this point Mumma was no longer feeling very confident about the emergency vets prognosis of the night before.  Also at this point Mumma realized that our regular vet Dr. Amy doesn't have any office hours on Wednesday.  And the emergency vet wouldn't be open again for another 7 hours.  Panic set in and rational thought left the building.  I'm not to proud to admit I placed a tearful call to Dr. Amy's answering machine in the vain hopes that someone might check it on their day off.  I did finally pull it back together and called the only other local vet whom I would trust any of my babies with.

The only thing missing is the big liquid egg that formed
under her jaw during the night.  

The Androscoggin Animal Hospital in Topsham (bless them) agreed to see Bettina at 11:15a.  We presented ourselves promptly.  Dr. Molly saw us and felt that the NSAID Bettina had been given probably caused "gastric distress" (love that term, Bettina just gastric distressed herself all over the carpet again...).  So Bettina laid in Mumma's lap while they administered subcutaneous fluids to combat dehydration as well as Pepcid to cut down the stomach acid and Cerenia to help with the nausea.  They advised that I give her oral Pepcid for the next few days and gave us Tramadol to use in place of the Metacam.

Bettina again seemed somewhat revived by the time we got home.  She joined us in the newly Spot Botted office and spent much of the afternoon sleeping.  When she got up and came to see me, I noted that her swelling had most definitely gone down.  Her eyes seemed a little brighter as well.  I tried giving her a biscuit which she ate as best she could with one lip that had gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson.  She also agreed to a little bit of chicken broth though kindly left half of it for Blue to finish (who is this dog?).

We're back at dinner time, the same place we were when Mumma posted yesterday.  I'm hoping she eats at least part of a meal and that it stays down along with the Clavamox, Pepcid and Tramadol I will try and give her.  Cross your fingers for us!  If I ever find that damned civet cat (or opossum or barn cat or fisher) I'm going to make a muff out of it's mangy hide after I get the pin number for it's bank account so I can recoup her medical costs.