Please excuse me for being an emotional, sappy mess but I hope this sad story about a race against time helps another dog owner in the future. I have been on this forum for many months getting great advice on my boerboel puppy pax, who has struggled with entropion, food allergies, bacterial infections and demodex. After 22 trips to the vet, dermatologist and animal hospital Pax was doing great. At 7 months old he weighed 120lbs, he was free of demodex, skin was completed healed from infection and was doing great on a salmon based diet. May was our best month ever. We went hiking, took trips to the beach and spent every night together taking walks around town and visiting all of our neighborhood puppy friends. I left for work Saturday morning, but before my shift was over I got a phone call from my husband saying that Pax was throwing up and the his regular vet was closed. I immediately began making plans to leave work while my husband took Pax to a vet that was open. this is where a our race against time began.
At 1:30 pm Pax had X-rays done which clearly revealed that Pax had a large peice of corn on the cob lodged inhis small intestine. The vet explained that this was serious and Pax needed to go to the ER. The ER gave Pax IV fluids and medication to hydrate him and to subside the vomiting. The vet said there was a small chance that he could pass the corn natural with hydration, but if not he would need major surgery. It was almost midnight and Pax still was not passing the corn naturally. We stayed up all night trying to get the funds for surgery. We only had 2,000.00 left in our emergency funds. We had all of our money tied up in escrow to buy a house because my husbands job needs us to relocate out of state this month. Needless to say, this couldn't of happened at a worse time. We even tried to increase our credit limit on our credit cards but we were unable to come up with enough money for surgery, which was thousands of dollars more than what we had availible. It took all night just to come up with enough money to cover Pax's X-rays and overnight stay at the ER. In a last attempt I reached out to brow dog foundation and helping hands but this was happening over the weekend and we were running out of time. By 9am the next morning Pax was going downhill fast. I cried so hard that my eyes burned and I could hardly breath. Just when I thought it was all over for Pax, a doctor at the ER called me with an unconventional option.
It was around 12:00 when the doctor said in a empathetic voice,"there is someone in house that is willing to pay for all of Pax's surgery cost as well as all ongoing medical care to keep him alive." My heart jumped with joy and I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. But then the doctor said, "the only condition is that this staff member would then become Pax's new mommy." I spent the rest of the day on the floor of the ER holding Pax's head in my lap and bawled like a baby in front of a room of strangers. At 5pm pax began throwing up feces and stopped licking my hands, I knew it was time. At 5:30 I signed the papers that allowed pax to get the medical help that he needed. At 5:45 I kissed him goodbye and watched him struggle to walk away. Our time was up.
I am forever grateful to the person who took on this responsibility and gave Pax a chance to live when I could not. However, it's breaking my heart to know that I will never find out if he made it or not. One of the conditions to this unconventional option was that I am not allowed to contact the ER or the vet that helped Pax. All that I ask is that if this mysterious saint ever reads this post please give me a sign that he is ok. And most importantly I want to thank you for trying to save my best friend's life. We will never forget you Paxi boy.even though our time together was short, you now have the chance to run down the beach for years to come.
Here is a picture of my final hour with Pax
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and definitely check into your rights.
