Weekend at the Emergency Vet

This last weekend started out with so much promise. We headed out Saturday morning to Mercer Island dog park for a playdate with Anika, Kirby and Ms. Louise Bubbles. Lou and Maizy were having a great time, going back and forth between the shy dog area, where Saoirse hangs out, and the main dog park area where Maizy loves to swim. Saoirse was having a nice time exploring the little shy dog area and she met a funny, fluffy little dog and was actually playing and running around. Lou and Maizy came back over to the shy dog area and everyone was running around having a jolly old time. Lou and Saoirse were so funny playing together.

Suddenly, we all heard this piercing yelp and Maizy was down. Eric said after the fact that he had seen her running really fast and then skidding along the grass to stop and that’s when she yelped. All I knew at that moment was that Maizy was lying on her side holding her leg up, yelping and yelping this awful piercing cry. We ran across the small dog area—not a long distance, but it felt like it took 20 minutes to get to her. Eric tried to pick her up and carry her, while I got Saoirse on her leash. But Maizy didn’t want to be carried and struggled until Eric set her down. She gradually began to bear weight on her foot and we made it slowly back to the car.

Our vet was all booked and couldn’t see us, but luckily we were only 5 minutes from the Aerowood Animal Hospital in Bellevue that is also an all-hours emergency vet, so we went there. They saw us right away and the very nice vet took Maizy in the back to examine her. I could hear her yelping from the back—poor sweet Maizy. They confirmed that her dewclaw toe (the claw up on the side of her front paw) had broken inside her foot. Her claw must have gotten caught on something on the ground when she was sliding to a stop at the park and ripped the toe out. The vet said she would need surgery to amputate the whole dewclaw toe, but we were concerned that she had eaten too recently to put her under anesthesia, so we opted to wait till Monday for the surgery.

They sent us home with pain meds and told us to take it easy with Maizy for the rest of the weekend, so that’s what we did. It was a rough weekend and the worry about Maizy limping around and yelping any time she bumped her toe paired with the anxiety about the impending surgery was awful. Eric and I have both been total emotional wrecks. I had grotesque displays of public emotion—crying in front of the vet techs on Saturday when they told me that there were some additional risks with the anesthesia because of Maizy’s age. We opted for the pre-anesthesia blood work and the IV fluids during surgery to ensure that the anesthesia was as safe as possible. Then there was the bursting into tears in front of the vet/surgeon when I went in to drop Maizy off for surgery yesterday. Then my mother called to see how it was going shortly after that and I completely lost it on the phone sobbing and blubbering so much she couldn’t understand a thing I was saying. We were so worried that Maizy didn’t understand why we were leaving her at the vet and we didn’t want her to feel scared and like we had abandoned her. And we also had no idea what we do if something happened to her. The thought of something going wrong with the anesthesia was too devastating to bear. Eric was at work all day and had to completely suppress his emotions about the whole thing to get through the work day—poor guy.  

My dear friend Karen kindly spent the whole day yesterday with me and was a great distraction while we waited for the vet’s call. We got some work done on our course proposal (we’re hoping to collaborate on a class on captivity next year) and we chatted and went out for some noodle soup at Loving Hut for lunch. After lunch, I couldn’t wait any longer and I called the vet to see if Maizy had made it through the surgery. She had and the vet said we could pick her up at 5:30. When we picked her up, they gave us her x-rays, which I’m always fascinated by. I mean, you can see the bones inside her paw:

I had no idea that’s what a dog’s foot looked like inside.

The pictures of the x-rays didn’t turn out that great. But maybe they’re interesting to see, nonetheless.

Maizy was so happy to see us when she came out and was all wasted on opiates and bonking the cone she was wearing against everything. Her poor sweet foot was all wrapped up in a bandage.

The vet said they had to pull out the big guns pain meds for Maizy. The vet said, “She seems to be a little bit dramatic about things.” That’s Maizy! If she is standing behind me and I don’t see her in the kitchen and step back on her foot accidentally on a good day (when it’s not broken), she yelps and cries like the world is ending. I can’t even imagine how bad it must have been to have her toe broken and go through that pain. She’s just a bit sensitive and she needs a lot of pampering. This weekend, when we were taking it easy, she bumped her toe on something and yelped and immediately came over to me and pushed herself under my legs for some pats and scratches and just wanted me to tell her it was okay. After I did, she felt much better and went back to whatever it was she was doing.  

Now, when we take Maizy out to go to the bathroom, she has to wear this plastic bag thing on her foot to protect the bandage and Maizy is so distracted by trying to shake the thing off her foot and hopping along, not wanting to walk on the bag, with her cone bouncing and knocking into things. She won’t go to the bathroom outside, no matter how long we’re out there and no matter what the conditions are. It’s terrible and I can’t wait until she can ditch the cone and the bandage and get her sutures removed. I just spent the morning cleaning up a lot of poop and pee in the house—between Saoirse’s occasional accident, and now Maizy’s refusal to go to the bathroom outside, it’s a lot of cleaning up. But I really don’t care because she’s safe at home and I’m just grateful that she’s here to make a mess to clean up!

Saoirse was a bit out of sorts when Maizy was gone all day yesterday and when Maizy got home, Saoirse was terrified of the cone at first. Now she’s just happy to have Maizy back and they’re napping on the couch. We are all so grateful that Maizy made it through the surgery and that she’s home with us. She is my love—my heart—and the thought of losing her is just too much to bear.