So, as I was saying…
…when you wake up in the morning to find a nine inch pool of blood in the hallway your day is going to suck so much ass you may as well change your given name to Rimjob.
Normally, that much blood lying around the house has come out of me (or a bag) but surely I would remember losing that many erythrocytes. Oddly, I didn't doubt for a minute that Timber was the, er, perpetrator? victim? Hm. Source. Yes.
Timber had been off his feed for a few days, but he’d been chunky to begin with, and my dad said that the dogs occasionally used hunger strikes to insist on newer, less boring dog food. Besides, he gobbled up the treats I gave him with his arthritis medication, nibbled from his food bowl, and just the other night he hovered by my dinner plate hoping for a handout: he seemed hardly sick at all. But Timber had been stepping gingerly for a few days, and listless to boot. Even Queenie was sleeping more since I had been the only human around (my dad and stepmom took off for Ohio for Memorial Day Weekend and I was dogsitting), but she still danced with anticipation when I filled her bowl or hooked her up to the chain at the door. Timber didn’t.
I should also probably note that Queenie is a tiny English Shepherd of about 20 pounds, all gristle, bone and muscle (in that order). She was a supermodel among dogs, but had she lost that much blood overnight she would have dried up and blown away. (Not that that would have brought a tear to many eyes aside from my dad’s; Queenie is hardly a vicious dog but her neurotic obsession with flight, specifically animal flight, which sends her non-stop from window to window as long as the world is lit by sunshine wins her few admirers.)
Call me shallow, but my first thought was simply to slice the carpet off the floor and throw it outside. I suffered from spontaneous nosebleeds as a child and I was well aware of how hard it would be to clean. (Besides, my dad was planning on replacing that hall carpet anyhow.) I put the thought of all that blood far back in my mind and faced the fact that I would find Timber alive or dead as I shuffled into the living room.
Timber was lying, panting, next to the living room table. He looked sick. Not that his eyes were glazed, or had blood-flecked foam on his lips; he looked fine, but when you grow up with dogs, you learn to read them simply by how they react. This time, Timber simply failed to react to seeing me. He did not lock his eyes on me and watch my every move as he used to. I petted him, cooing. Normally he would throw his head around, trying to lick your hand and keep his eyes on you in his paranoid, affectionate way, but Timber just laid there and let me pet him.
Uh-oh.
I threw my unfinished cup of coffee from last night into the microwave and hit the computer room.
Call one was to Laura. I told her to skip picking me up on her way to the Memorial Day parade.
Call two to Mom. I told her that I would be busy with Timber all day and asked her to watch Michela. She asked if she should bring Michela out to see me. (My mom is, occasionally, completely insane.) I shot this down firmly. Someday my daughter will learn about death, but watching a dog vomit blood is not how I see it happening.
Call three was to the vet. The number was busy. Busy? What the hell?
Shuffled out to the kitchen, retrieved coffee. Timber had barely moved. I put the water bowl next to him. No interest. Shit.
I went to the blood again, sipping coffee. It was disconcerting. I am used to blood (as I noted, usually my own), but not knowing what was in that blood unnerved me. I wandered back to the computer room and fired up the modem. Timber had been on buffered aspirin but was now on Rinxidyl. Google has never heard of it. What the hell? I read the label again, tried again. Failure. I took the lid off and read the pill: Rimadyl. The label does not match the pill name. Uh-oh. What was worse is that people seem to be blaming the drug (made by my former employer) for deadly bleeding ulcers and intestinal necrosis. Great.
But, really: a surprisingly small dose of acetaminophen can destroy your liver, or just kill you if you are lucky; what drug is always safe? I learned also that acidic aspirin does not destroy your stomach lining. Aspirin suppresses two types of prostaglandins: one causes inflammation, the other reminds your body that it is time for a new stomach lining. All the new NSCID drugs (such as Celebrex or Rimadyl) are designed not to suppress the latter prostaglandin. Ah.
More Google: how do I treat a bleeding ulcer? Apparently you either eliminate the cause (and take Zantac, but not if it is a gastric ulcer) or you go into surgery: no middle ground. Damn. Time for bigger guns: call four was to Dad. I informed him of the situation. He was pessimistic, but that is sort of his job. I talk to Liz. She sounded upset and berated herself for not taking Timber in before the trip. I assured her that it was probably a gastric ulcer and that Timber would be fine.
I called the vet again. Busy. What the hell?
Timber threw up again. Still blood, but much smaller. I thought, if this keeps up, maybe it means he is healing. Meanwhile, time to clean. I could not keep Queenie out all day.
I fetched the ShopVac, the one with the steel canister and no bag, from the garage. I added the flat, broad attachment from the vacuum cleaner. I filled a bucket with water and Tide, borrowed one of the dog water buckets for plain water and got out a scrub brush.
It was worse than I imagined. This stuff was pure blood, bright red and filled with sticky clots. I first used an old rag undershirt to pick up most of the blood-big mistake. It immediately looked like a souvenir from Akbar & Jeff’s Civil War Amputation Hut (“Where the elite meet after retreat to get lopped off at the feet”). When I used the brush the clots stuck in the bristles and had to be picked out by hand.
Today
Well, all this dates from May 29th. I posted it and promptly locked it, unfinished. The arch style is my way of dealing with someone else’s suffering. Cruel? Perhaps. But unwarranted sympathy can be just as damaging.
In the end, Timber got exactly what you expect: a lethal injection. His lymph nodes were swollen and hard: his first vet did not notice, but the second did. Basically, the tumor grew into the GI tract and ruptured. Timber’s medication did not cause the bleeding into his stomach (or if it did, it was about 2% responsible and the cancer 98%) but certainly the clinical myopia of the first vet led to Timber suffering more than he might have otherwise.
So, I spent my day cleaning up blood and trying to feed a mortally ill dog mashed potatoes, rice and cooked ground beef. It was not fun. But I walked away from it, which is more than Timber did.
Normally, that much blood lying around the house has come out of me (or a bag) but surely I would remember losing that many erythrocytes. Oddly, I didn't doubt for a minute that Timber was the, er, perpetrator? victim? Hm. Source. Yes.
Timber had been off his feed for a few days, but he’d been chunky to begin with, and my dad said that the dogs occasionally used hunger strikes to insist on newer, less boring dog food. Besides, he gobbled up the treats I gave him with his arthritis medication, nibbled from his food bowl, and just the other night he hovered by my dinner plate hoping for a handout: he seemed hardly sick at all. But Timber had been stepping gingerly for a few days, and listless to boot. Even Queenie was sleeping more since I had been the only human around (my dad and stepmom took off for Ohio for Memorial Day Weekend and I was dogsitting), but she still danced with anticipation when I filled her bowl or hooked her up to the chain at the door. Timber didn’t.
I should also probably note that Queenie is a tiny English Shepherd of about 20 pounds, all gristle, bone and muscle (in that order). She was a supermodel among dogs, but had she lost that much blood overnight she would have dried up and blown away. (Not that that would have brought a tear to many eyes aside from my dad’s; Queenie is hardly a vicious dog but her neurotic obsession with flight, specifically animal flight, which sends her non-stop from window to window as long as the world is lit by sunshine wins her few admirers.)
Call me shallow, but my first thought was simply to slice the carpet off the floor and throw it outside. I suffered from spontaneous nosebleeds as a child and I was well aware of how hard it would be to clean. (Besides, my dad was planning on replacing that hall carpet anyhow.) I put the thought of all that blood far back in my mind and faced the fact that I would find Timber alive or dead as I shuffled into the living room.
Timber was lying, panting, next to the living room table. He looked sick. Not that his eyes were glazed, or had blood-flecked foam on his lips; he looked fine, but when you grow up with dogs, you learn to read them simply by how they react. This time, Timber simply failed to react to seeing me. He did not lock his eyes on me and watch my every move as he used to. I petted him, cooing. Normally he would throw his head around, trying to lick your hand and keep his eyes on you in his paranoid, affectionate way, but Timber just laid there and let me pet him.
Uh-oh.
I threw my unfinished cup of coffee from last night into the microwave and hit the computer room.
Call one was to Laura. I told her to skip picking me up on her way to the Memorial Day parade.
Call two to Mom. I told her that I would be busy with Timber all day and asked her to watch Michela. She asked if she should bring Michela out to see me. (My mom is, occasionally, completely insane.) I shot this down firmly. Someday my daughter will learn about death, but watching a dog vomit blood is not how I see it happening.
Call three was to the vet. The number was busy. Busy? What the hell?
Shuffled out to the kitchen, retrieved coffee. Timber had barely moved. I put the water bowl next to him. No interest. Shit.
I went to the blood again, sipping coffee. It was disconcerting. I am used to blood (as I noted, usually my own), but not knowing what was in that blood unnerved me. I wandered back to the computer room and fired up the modem. Timber had been on buffered aspirin but was now on Rinxidyl. Google has never heard of it. What the hell? I read the label again, tried again. Failure. I took the lid off and read the pill: Rimadyl. The label does not match the pill name. Uh-oh. What was worse is that people seem to be blaming the drug (made by my former employer) for deadly bleeding ulcers and intestinal necrosis. Great.
But, really: a surprisingly small dose of acetaminophen can destroy your liver, or just kill you if you are lucky; what drug is always safe? I learned also that acidic aspirin does not destroy your stomach lining. Aspirin suppresses two types of prostaglandins: one causes inflammation, the other reminds your body that it is time for a new stomach lining. All the new NSCID drugs (such as Celebrex or Rimadyl) are designed not to suppress the latter prostaglandin. Ah.
More Google: how do I treat a bleeding ulcer? Apparently you either eliminate the cause (and take Zantac, but not if it is a gastric ulcer) or you go into surgery: no middle ground. Damn. Time for bigger guns: call four was to Dad. I informed him of the situation. He was pessimistic, but that is sort of his job. I talk to Liz. She sounded upset and berated herself for not taking Timber in before the trip. I assured her that it was probably a gastric ulcer and that Timber would be fine.
I called the vet again. Busy. What the hell?
Timber threw up again. Still blood, but much smaller. I thought, if this keeps up, maybe it means he is healing. Meanwhile, time to clean. I could not keep Queenie out all day.
I fetched the ShopVac, the one with the steel canister and no bag, from the garage. I added the flat, broad attachment from the vacuum cleaner. I filled a bucket with water and Tide, borrowed one of the dog water buckets for plain water and got out a scrub brush.
It was worse than I imagined. This stuff was pure blood, bright red and filled with sticky clots. I first used an old rag undershirt to pick up most of the blood-big mistake. It immediately looked like a souvenir from Akbar & Jeff’s Civil War Amputation Hut (“Where the elite meet after retreat to get lopped off at the feet”). When I used the brush the clots stuck in the bristles and had to be picked out by hand.
Today
Well, all this dates from May 29th. I posted it and promptly locked it, unfinished. The arch style is my way of dealing with someone else’s suffering. Cruel? Perhaps. But unwarranted sympathy can be just as damaging.
In the end, Timber got exactly what you expect: a lethal injection. His lymph nodes were swollen and hard: his first vet did not notice, but the second did. Basically, the tumor grew into the GI tract and ruptured. Timber’s medication did not cause the bleeding into his stomach (or if it did, it was about 2% responsible and the cancer 98%) but certainly the clinical myopia of the first vet led to Timber suffering more than he might have otherwise.
So, I spent my day cleaning up blood and trying to feed a mortally ill dog mashed potatoes, rice and cooked ground beef. It was not fun. But I walked away from it, which is more than Timber did.