We’ve spent a lot of time the last two weeks thinking about Millie. Why? Well, two weeks ago D came home for lunch to find Millie splayed out on the floor wheezing. For the non dog owners out there that isn’t a good thing. D rushed Millie to the Veterinarian’s where after the poked and prodded her a bit, including sticking their hand down her throat they shrugged their shoulders and decided to take some x-rays. The x-rays showed that Millie’s tummy had quite a few rocks and pebbles in it. The Vet said he thought one of them was stuck in her throat but that it he might have pushed it back into her stomach during the poking and prodding. He let us take her home and hoped that Millie would be able to pass them (‘passing’ is the polite word that vets use when they are talking about poop and pooping.) We did that. I spent the evening and morning looking through Millie’s stool with a stick (stool is the polite word I use when I am talking about shit and shitting.) Sadly, I found nothing.
So, the next day I took Millie back and she spent the entire day at the vet’s. What was she doing there? Vomiting. A lot of vomiting. The Veterinarian induced vomiting (they had another polite word for it but I don’t remember what it was) What did Millie throw-up? Rocks, pebbles, sticks, leaves, and other miscellaneous plant and soil matter. Excellent, right? It would be except additional x-rays showed that Millie still had some rocks in her tummy, for all I know they are still there now. So, with Millie all cleaned out the vet sent us home with a bunch of medicine and told us that Millie would still sound a little bad but would be improving and that he’d call us again after the weekend to see how she was doing.
Millie was doing a little better. It’s hard to tell because the little tyrant pretty much spends half of the day running around being a menace and the other half trying to crawl in people’s lap for pet’s and puppy kisses. She still seemed to be having breathing trouble especially through her nose. We had asked the vet to check her nose after the vomiting, to do a throat and neck x-ray just to make sure. He told us he had probed the nose but not done any x-rays again, but that she was fine and mending. Except, the whole weekend passed and then Monday and Tuesday went by and Millie was still not breathing normal. D finally put her foot down and told the vet to x-ray Millie’s throat and neck, that there had to be something going on in that area or nose because Millie couldn’t breath. The veterinarian didn’t give her story much credence, they didn’t think anything was in her nose, but they did agree to x-ray her for free since they didn’t the last time we had asked. It was a good thing D was persistent.
That is Millie’s skull. That dense white mass behind her upper molars? That is a stone that was lodged in her nasal passage. As soon as the vet saw it they immediately prepped Millie for surgery. The surgery took over a hour and involved pushing a scope down Millie’s throat and then back up into her nasal passage so they could grab the stone and pull it out. But! The stone was too firmly lodged and so they had to shoot water under high pressure down her nose to help dislodge the stone.
The vet hypothesized that the stone got up there during all the vomiting. That one of the pebbles went up the wrong tube in the process of being expelled from the stomach. We’re just glad that it’s now not IN Millie. It’s been three days since the surgery and Millie is doing much, much better, she seems to enjoy being able to breath through her nose again. We’re happy she’s better and we’re not destitute!
Puppies, am I right?