Unfortunately throughout his life, he's had some awful stuff done to him and most of the time it's been as a result of our trying to be good parents to him. Once when he was given his annual shots in the afternoon, he preceded to have a massive allergic reaction twelve hours later at 1:00 in the morning and had to be rushed to the emergency veterinarian hospital about 25 minutes away. It seemed like it took hours to get there when in reality at that hour it was a straight shot into the hospital and no one was waiting. Upon arriving they took my rather limp and almost unresponsive dog to the back room and when we asked what we were waiting for, they told us, well, we're hoping to save his life...who knew? When he came home he was stuck like glue to me and wouldn't leave my side. He slept the rest of that morning like a rock...while we went about our day in a state of sleep deprived delirium.
Another time we were having a chip inserted into him for identification. A simple and easy procedure we thought. I mean, how many dogs have had it done and never had a problem? Thousands and even his little sister Oreo had it done the same day by the same veterinarian, but not my little guy. He had a lump grow ominously around the injection site and we treated it and kept taking him to the vet. to find out what was going on. Finally after all the antibiotics and at one point consideration of a biopsy, some really nice guy I didn't know in the local pet store said to me, do you suppose it could be a staph infection? Sure enough, after taking him back to our old and original veterinarian, they did a major resection of his poor little skin almost all the way around his rather small chest and took out necrotic tissue. We were again reminded of how tough he was, but not so tough that he didn't whimper and cry out in his sleep and cuddle even closer to me. The only time he would calm down and not cry was when I would place my hand on his side and just pet him softly. He would calm down and eventually relax enough to go back to sleep. I couldn't go back to sleep and stood watch for the next whimper and cry. It was a long night all those nights ago. Just as last night was and now we fear more nights ahead.
Last night was long because he NEVER went to sleep. He was extremely restless and agitated. He kept licking his leg, his ear was bothering him and he scratched it, he moved a million times, never settling for any length of time in any one position, he was under the covers, on top of the covers, on my side and on my husband's side, back to my side, head on pillow, back legs kicking me, up against me so tightly that I couldn't move my legs or upper body, back to licking, sighing, licking as if he was tasting something and maybe one time out of the entire night, he slept for about an hour, total...needless to say, I wasn't sleeping at all. I worried about his advancing symptoms, I worried about what I could give him at 2:00AM, 4:00AM, even 7:00AM, since we hadn't discussed the type of pain medication that would be most effective except the one we had. He wasn't exactly the normal dog and he wasn't acting like our sleepy headed Mack. He was miserable. Finally at around 5:00AM I put him in his crate, just to give me a few minutes of rest without his moving around, and instead of relishing his own place, his own bed, he whimpered to let him out. It took a long time to train him to not sleep with us, so this was like going back in time, but I don't have the heart to say, NO Mack, I can't NOT be his comfort. All I can say is sleep deprivation may be my lot in life for the next few months. I'll have to learn to cat nap I guess. Or at the very least keep him up and awake so he's not sleeping all night on the couch or chair by me, but active and awake, and busy and then maybe a Benedryl to give him some allergy relief and a pain killer to keep him pain free. Maybe this is the new normal for Mack. I hope not, but one doesn't know what to expect with my little Diggie Dog.
No comments:
Post a Comment