Happy Friday brings some relief and resolution.

It’s been figured out.

Flower’s ailment has been identified and hopefully resolved.

Her vomiting had been non-stop… pretty much whenever she even moved; however the night before last, after a visit to the specialist for the third set of x-rays; which didn’t reveal much of anything except some wire… she got much worse. She was trembling and breathing shallowly. I thought she was going to die. I stood in the kitchen, tearing up leaves of red lettuce and chopping peppers while blubbering like a fool. I’m sure the tears were for lots of things in addition to my ailing little dog… but nonetheless, the idea of losing something close to me fills me with terror.

The specialist told my husband as he looked at the latest x-ray: “Well, I can see she’s eaten…” and my husband replied, “no, actually, she hasn’t.” It established that her stomach had _something_ in it. The specialist wanted $1,700 to use a scope, and warned that they would not guarantee being able to extract anything with the scope… so surgery would be next; and performed by the specialists… it would be $3,000. We took her home to think about it… With hubby’s layoff, we simply didn’t have that option. And specialists don’t work deals or allow payments. In fact, I calculated it out; based on the charge simply to interpret an x-ray for ten minutes; veterinary specialists get $600 an hour.

Our own vet, Flower’s ‘PCP’ so to speak, at Linwood Animal Clinic is a great person. I worked as an office manager there for a few years, and the people who remain are like family to me. They’ve all known Flower since we got her at 8 weeks back in early 2005. She was frustrated about finding the cause of Flower’s illness… and she was determined to not let the worst happen because we couldn’t find $4,700. She offered to do immediate exploratory surgery, and it was a darn sight cheaper than the specialist and we had the option of payments.

So Flower had exploratory surgery yesterday. They sliced open her precious tummy and took out a wad of random things tangled together from her stomach, and as they pulled, another wad, tethered by what looks like a thin elastic that one finds on the stems of flowers, came out of her intestinal tract. She had about 75% blockage in her intestines. She was apparently in some serious pain.

So she’s home now, and on the mend. She’s pretty pathetic. We came in last night and put her carrier down and opened the door, and she didn’t come out. She just lay there, her little eyes rolling around looking at us. We moved the cage to the fire, and she finally emerged, tottering on her wobbly legs and flopping down by the fire shivering. We covered her with a blanket.

Hubby just sent me this picture. I don’t think she has enough blankets and throws. She still looks pretty sad and pathetic. Despite the massive expenditures and debt… how could we not do whatever we could to save this precious thing? Really...

Anyways, here's my Happy Friday office special. It's a little rabbit mum preparing her little rabbit daughters for a nice game of Graces. It was an important exercise for growing girls, to learn grace and coordination. Have a lovely weekend.