How do you mend a broken heart?
You know you are facing something serious when your puppy is in ICU before you’ve even checked in at the front desk of the vet clinic.
We’d barely walked into the front doors of the Veterinary Referral Clinic when a passing tech took one look at Ema and shrieked “Get that collar off of that puppy!!!”. Startled, I asked why and was told, “Because she’s turning blue!”. Sighing, I said “Yes, I realize that – she’s always blue. It’s why we’re here”. I’m not sure that the tech still didn’t think I was an idiot, and she snatched up Ema and said she was taking her into the back to ICU, to put her on oxygen. I’d only just had time to agree before Ema was rushed away from me and into the back.
When I saw her again, twenty minutes later, Ema was perched on the examination table, looking just slightly more pink than she normally does. She was in the middle of a crowd of adoring techs and vets, all of whom were cooing at her. Ema tends to have that affect on people.
The diagnostic testing Dr. Minors and her staff did on Ema gave us an answer for what is wrong with her – in fact, it gave us two answers.
A longer Ema update coming…
I had a really, really long day, but I promise a full Ema update tomorrow*, along with all of the grisly anatomical details.
For now, how about a happy photo?
It’s Pumpkin Princess Ema, saying “Enuf wit the camera – get me outta here, lady!”.
* unless I get a sudden “we can do the surgery this afternoon at 3 pm” type phone call from the University of Guelph, in which case all bets are off
Oh, and ps – don’t forget, our new surgical goal is $3800, give or take – preferably give.
Ema at the Veterinary Cardiologist
I have a long, hard story about what we learned at today’s appointment with Ema. The short story? It’s fixable – expensive, but fixable.
At the moment, however, I’m just not up to writing about it – not yet. For now, I’m just going to give you a pictorial on Ema’s appointment with Veterinary Cardiologist, Dr. Sandra Minors, at the Mississauga Oakville Veterinary Referral Clinic.
Ema in the car enroute to the clinic. The resolution isn’t great, but you can sort of see the color of Ema’s tongue here – a uniform blue, almost all the time.
See the rest, after the cut – and please don’t forget to help, if you can.