Saturday

So Friday night, Benny puked up his dinner.  Vixen sometimes will puke, but Benny rarely does, so it was a bit disconcerting.  Then, he woke us up at 5:30 am puking some more, even more disconcerting; not to mention I was super sleepy and didn't feel like standing out in the dark with the dogs, but of course that is what I did (while JP cleaned up.)  And let me say, standing outside in the dark in the middle of the night in the middle of the woods, was a bit creepy.  So, we went back to sleep.  Now, Benny loves to sleep in the bed, and sometimes we let him, but many times we tell him to go to his own bed and he does.  But this particular night when I would tell Benny he couldn't get up in the bed, he stood next to the bed and let me pet him.  It was a slightly odd behavior that only a parent would notice.  So, when he woke us up at 8:30 am puking again, we started getting worried.  But what made matters worse, he was puking up blood.  So we drug our tired selves out of bed again and watched our baby boy wretch in the front yard.  And we knew why.  It was those bones that he ate so quickly and vigorously.  So, we grabbed the hydrogen peroxide and poured a little bit down his throat.  This is a safe and effective way to induce vomiting.  We were really hoping that the bone that was irritating him would come up.  But, it didn't.  It was an odd situation because his appetite was completely normal, his stools were completely normal, but the bloody puke was not.  We had a bad feeling that we knew exactly what the problem was- an obstruction.  So, 9 am Saturday morning I do a Google search to find the closest holistic veterinarian and see if they are open, and if they can take in our Benny.  The first place we called, Haw Creek Animal Hospital, is open until noon on Saturday and tell us they can fit him in.  So, we load up both dogs, with the hopes that we are being over-reactive and will get to walk them after.  We arrive at the vet's sometime around 10 am and begin our wait.  That place was a zoo.  The one vet on staff that day didn't get to see us until sometime around 1pm.  During the exam, she felt that Benny seemed very healthy but agreed with us that we should do x-rays as a precautionary measure.  When they called us in to see the x-rays, my heart sank, and I knew it couldn't be good.  If there was nothing to see, they wouldn't bring us back to show us, right?  So there it was, on the screen, a large piece of bone in our baby's stomach.  Fortunately, we caught it early and it was just in the stomach, not the intestines.

So, here we are at a random vet hospital in Asheville, on our vacation, on what was supposed to be the day we hiked Mt. Pisgah, and the vet is asking us if we want her to slice open our baby's chest and stomach and do exploratory surgery.  Now let me remind you that the vet hospital at this point is closed and we are the only people there.  This is not an after hours practice, so we are very lucky that Dr. Marchitelli, the weekend vet, was willing to stay and operate and keep some techs on after hours as well.  She had the practice owner on call. So, we sat in the lobby while Benny was put in pre-surgery.  The good news is that his blood-work came out perfect.  His liver and kidneys were functioning great.  She said that he was in great health and the risks were low.  We went next door to have lunch on the patio with Mr. Vixen while Benny was being put under anesthesia.  This was not the easiest time to eat, but we hadn't eaten all day, so we were able.  From the patio of the cafe, I could see the lights on in the back room of the vet hospital where I knew my Benny was laying with his chest open.  After lunch, we decided to go for a walk.  We found an Ingles (like our Harris Teeter) and bought S'mores supplies and some movies so that we could spend some time in.  Of course all the time worrying like crazy about our first son.  So much for a stress-relieving vacation.
When we got back to our car, we ran into a tech leaving.  He told us that the surgery had gone great and that she was stitching him back up.  He also told us that they removed a large piece of bone from Benny's stomach.
We knew that we would have a little time left to wait, so we went to the nearest pet store to get some extremely easy to digest food for our pup when he woke up- the raw diet, and some more freeze-dried raw food.  Raw is especially easy to digest as it has never been cooked, has no grains, and is already basically broken down.  If you're not familiar with it, it resembles uncooked hamburger.  We also stopped at a doggie bakery and bought Mr. Vixen a cookie.  
So anyway, we get back to the vet's as Benny is waking around 5:30 pm.  We got to go back and give him a hug and kiss while he was still really doped up.  He tried to get up and leave with us, but he could barely lift his head.  It was really sad, but we were really happy that he was awake.  It was terrifying waiting for the surgery to be over.  We still couldn't take him though. The vet wanted to let him stay on fluids a while longer, so she made arrangements to go and have the practice owner meet us back there at 10:30 pm to discharge him.
So, we rushed home, dropped Vixen off, showered, and had a quick dinner.  Then we stopped by a drug store for one of Benny's drugs, got some gas, and went back to the animal hospital (we chose one that is about 30 minutes away.)
Benny came running out to greet us, a bit wobbly, but happy nonetheless.  We are very grateful to the owner, Dr. Heather Sinclair and her husband for meeting us there to let us take our puppy home.
After a long, stressful, day we finally got back to the cabin with both dogs, and went to bed, with Benny sleeping between our legs.