Her torture started on Wednesday night, when we had to take her food and water away at 10:00pm the night before the surgery. This normally would be no problem (she doesn't eat much at all, and she doesn't eat very often either), but lately she's been eating after our night walks - and that's the only time that she eats all day. We didn't even think about this... so Jarrod and I went out to eat, and didn't get back home until a little after 10:00 - so the poor girl did not eat all day. I put her food on top of the kitchen counter when we got home, and then we took her for a walk. When we got back, she immediately went to where we keep her food, and started growling for it. Her growling became whining, and her whining became jumping up and down and whining. It was HEART BREAKING! Especially when I don't think she's ever cried in hunger in her whole life. I knew she must have been really really starving. I felt like such a bad puppy mom (I did sneak and give her five little pieces of her food at 10:30 shhhh... don't tell the vet.) I took a video of her before she turned TOO pitiful. Jarrod didn't like me taking videos of her, he felt like she was so sad and that was just wrong to catch it on tape. I agree... but knew we would want to have it for a memory - but then I stopped, even though she got much more pitiful.
She was pretty restless that night, being that we starved her! We had to get her to the vet at 8:00 the next morning. It was stormy and raining, and I had to let her go to the bathroom. So we were outside the vets office in the rain, trying to get her to potty, and she was just walking around (probably looking for food.) She never ended up going to the bathroom, but she was pretty wet by the time we went into the vet's office.
It was cold in there, she recognized the building, and starting shaking. She was so small and cold and wet and scared - I felt so bad for her. She got on the scale, I told her to stay and she just sat and looked at me like "why are you doing this to me?" She weighs a hefty 4.7 lbs.
They took her away, I talked to Jana for a minute (Jana is my future sister in law who is a Technician at the clinic... and who actually would be in the room with her during her surgery.)
I cried on the way home. It was so sad thinking of her cold and wet and shivering while they give her shots and take her blood. I was comforted a little by the fact that Jana was doing that (Phoebe LOVES Jana.)
I wasn't sad that she was having the procedure done... I was sad because I knew she didn't understand. All she knew is that I took her to a scary place, and left her while she was tortured. I couldn't help but remember when I was in the pre-op area with Jarrod before his surgery. There were these little kids wearing their pajamas, being held by the surgeons as they were being taken away to surgery. I wanted to cry for their parents too - watching their helpless children being taken to a scary painful place while their loving parents stood by and let it happen.
I hope that I never have to endure that with my child - it was hard enough to walk away from Phoebe. Being that she's under 5 lbs makes any operation risky for her. I was told that a lot of little dogs don't wake up from this surgery (and this is the main reason we've waited until now to have it done.) I have faith in her vet though, Jana said he's super quick, and can have a spay done in under 20 minutes (while other doctors at that same clinic take longer.)
I had to go home and go straight back to bed so I wouldn't think about losing her. The vet called me at 10:00 to say that she was fine, and he "flew" right through the procedure. It was torture waiting for 2:30 to roll around so that I could leave and pick her up.
She has been fine though. Not acting like she's in any pain. She's tired, but other than that, she's just fine. She doesn't like her "party hat" (thank you, Jana, for decorating it so pretty for her.) When she has it on, she doesn't move. She just stands still. I am with her most of the time, so she won't need it that often (only when I can't watch her). She did well sleeping with it last night too.
I love her. I can only imagine how much I will love my baby, because I can't put into words how much I love my poor pitiful little Phoebe girl.
Here are some more pictures (that jarrod didn't want me to take), so hopefully Phoebe can get some good sympathy from you guys too.
I can't wait until she feels like this again:
4 comments:
Poor Baby! I know this was hard on you guys. I thought about her several times and planned to call to see how she was but remembered that I could not b/c my phone is at home. I hope tomorrow is a great day for her.
Aww, I can totally relate to the agony of watching your little girl go through so much pain... Nali has been known for being a little accident prone, so we've had our fair share of visits to the vet. And B and I often talk about how hard it is to imagine loving a real baby one day MORE than we love our "babies" now...hard to believe because we just can't get enough of our girls!!
Hope she's recovering well, and although Jarrod disapproved, I liked seeing pics of her in the "party hat" :)
Poor, sweet Phoebe! I'm so glad she is okay and home with you now. Mazy and Maggy send their sympathy. :)
Janelle
Aw, what a cutie-pie puppy! Girl, I understand how you feel--it's the same for me when I take our baby (now 1 yr old!) to get her vaccinations and, these days, when I drop her off at daycare 4 days a week. She crawls after me, tears streaming down her face, saying "ma ma ma ma", and I have to force the lump down my throat and turn around and walk to my car to drive to work. It doesn't take something as big as my child having surgery to have my heart ripped out every day...
I hope that puppy has turned perky again by now!
Post a Comment