He's home!!!!

Thank you all SOOO much for your prayers and well wishes for our boy!

From Thursday afternoon until about 11 p.m. Saturday evening, he was at the Emergency Clinic recovering from an operation to remove his spleen due to internal bleeding. Before they could operate, he needed a blood transfusion because he had lost so much blood. As if that wasn't enough, Mr J has had ongoing problems with his right eye, and the surgeons thought it would be wise (if he was handling the anesthesia without any problems) to go ahead and remove his eye at the same time since it was going to continue to cause him problems - and great pain - in the future.

As it turns out, we are familiar with this procedure because our sweet Ms. Giz, who we lost several years ago, also had to have her right eye removed due to constant eye infections/complications related to her diabetes. And as you can see from this photo, she was a very happy little girl despite the procedure. 

So now our boy is home! We bought and installed a baby gate before we went to pick him up because he is not allowed to use stairs for quite some time. (It has been a LONG time since we've had a baby gate at the top of these stairs - our girls are now 24 and 27 years old!)

Mr J goes back to have his stitches removed in 10-12 days. In the meantime he is on pain killers and high blood pressure medicine, which he is handling just fine. We will know biopsy results early next week and are certainly praying that there is no cancer involved.

Mr J, shortly after coming home last night...

So as a recap...

Cost of original vet visit (well over $200).... 

Cost of 3-day emergency clinic (suffice to say, thousands upon thousands)

Cost of  baby gate... ($59)

Having our boy back at home, smiling..... PRICELESS!

Prayers for our boy...

As I type this, our sweet Mr. J is undergoing surgery.

This all happened so suddenly. He was fine yesterday, but this morning seemed lethargic. And then when he showed no interest whatsoever in his breakfast, we knew something was wrong.

This is a dog who LOVES eating. His eyes aren't locked on me in these photos. They are locked on a dog bone I'm holding up in order to get some good photos of him.

Our vet saw him this morning and after an x-ray they sent us to an emergency 24 hour animal clinic where an ultrasound showed possible internal bleeding and a mass on his spleen.

They first needed to stabilize him due to the internal bleeding.

They weren't sure what time they would actually start operating,

so I am sitting by the phone waiting to hear something.

 While we were at the emergency clinic, I spotted this little magazine from across the room. The dog on the cover looked like what I imagine our  sweet Mr. J looked like when he was younger, before his entire muzzle turned white. We didn't know him in the early years of his life as he came from a shelter at an older age.

I've been missing in action for most of this past month due to some medical issues of my own. It's been a trying month, that's for sure.

Hopefully I'll be writing again soon with some very good news about Mr. J!!!

Donna

Our Galway Girl...

 ... with her hair of black and her eyes of blue...

I come from a long, proud 100% Irish heritage on my mom's side! To this day, I can still hear my mom singing Danny Boy! And I'll never forget the 45 of  "Who Threw The Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder," that used to play on our old phonograph when my sister and I were kids!

Mom always made sure my sister and I wore something green on St. Patty's Day, and she did as well!

I made sure my girls did, too, when they were younger.

Love and miss you, Mom! Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!

And wishing all of you a Happy St. Patrick's Day as well!!!

After all, everyone is at least a wee bit Irish today!

Donna