Kaiser Update

I've talked about our Great Dane Kaiser before and all his medical problems and expenses. Despite what a pain in the ass he is, we both love him to pieces and he's basically our child. He seems to require the type of attention a child would need (vs. a dog) and we do a fair amount of worrying about him. If he gets sick or throws up we're both watching him like a hawk, just waiting for the day when his stomach bloats or his hip pops out of socket.

Last week we were in bed when I was slightly woken up by the sound of coughing/retching. I wasn't fully awake yet until I heard the sound of puking, and I immediately flew out of bed and ran into the guest bedroom. As a reward for getting older and more mature and trustworthy we've been letting him sleep in the bed in there instead of his cage at night. Anyway, throwing up is one of the first signs of bloat, and you have only hours to save a dog who has bloated. So we take upset stomachs very seriously.

As I rounded the corner this is what I saw:

Kaiser was lying on the ground, instead of on the bed, in a huge puddle of foam. I assumed a few things in that second: that he had bloated during the night and crawled off the bed to try to get to us or downstairs but hadn't made it very far. He'd been puking foam or whatever it was and I hadn't heard him until now. And with that amount of stomach contents on the ground, I thought we were too late and he was probably not going to make it. This is at 12:30am.

I woke Justin up with my "OH MY GOD" and he jumped out of bed. It was at this point I flicked on the lights, ready to jump into action and save him.

I was a bit premature in my half-asleep state. He had actually gotten wrapped up in the blanket, somehow gotten to the floor with it, and had really only tossed a few pieces of dog food that he had inhaled without chewing. He was totally fine, and excited to see me at this early time of the morning. Needless to say I was relived, but my adrenaline continued to pump for another thirty or forty minutes before I was able to go back to sleep. Add that to Fun with Kaiser.

Speaking of expensive, I scheduled Kaiser's surgery for his cherry eye. I starved him the night before like you're supposed to and my Mom drove to Columbus to drop him off since I had to work. They put him under and started to work on his eye when they realized that it wasn't normal cherry eye. He has something called a "Prolapse of the Third Eyelid". What they told me was the cartilage that holds his eyelid in place is actually growing up and out (instead of in?) and is pushing the gland out of his eye.

Cute Xmas pic, huh?

Soooooo we have to schedule another surgery with an eye specialist at OSU. I'm sure that'll be cheap, right? Then he'll have to wear a collar for a few weeks. I can't WAIT!