Roux had a rough weekend. If you’d seen her Sunday morning you would have assumed she’d had a run in with Mike Tyson, or some other able bodied professional boxer. We went for a hike Saturday morning, during which she apparently had an unfortunate run in with some insect, spider or snake. I watch her like a hawk, but the grass is long and she’s an explorer at heart, so she will occasionally venture off the trail in pursuit of new smells. The Bite must have occurred during one of these mini excursions because I certainly never noticed anything unusual. At least not until that afternoon when her eyes started swelling, and she looked vaguely like she was trying to get over a killer hangover.
I’ve mentioned this before, but my paranoia regarding my dog’s health jumps from zero to one hundred in about .12 seconds when I think I have reason to be concerned. So when Roux’s eyes started swelling, I felt myself going into panic overdrive and had to remind myself that her life wasn’t actually in danger. I gave her a few Benadryl and tried not to worry. After all, it was a Saturday and the emergency vet is not the most fun place to spend the weekend. (Or the most economical, for that matter).
About 5am Sunday morning I groggily rolled over to see how the swelling had progressed, and was completely and utterly horrified when my vision had cleared enough to actually see Roux’s face. Her left eye was almost swollen shut; it looked like someone stuffed a golf ball under the eye lid. The right side of her mouth was so puffy that she looked like a Sharpei. And she was covered in welts the size of mini pancakes. Her muzzle was so swollen that her nostrils were actually shrinking, and it was right about the time I heard her first wheeze that I jumped into motion. We were out of the house and at the emergency clinic in 10 minutes flat; a speed record we can credit to the fact that I didn’t concern myself in the least with my physical appearance (my tshirt was actually on inside out) and the fact that I am unusually good at driving very, very fast on roads with a speed limit of 35 m.p.h.
Two injections (and $210.00) later, Roux’s swelling was already going down. By the time we got home she had improved dramatically. These photos are from yesterday afternoon, after the swelling had diminished by about 70%. Still, that 30% is pretty evident, mainly when you see how she still cannot open her left eye all the way, and when you consider the chipmunk-esque right lip.
She’s still doped up on all kinds of Benadryl, which is making her extra cuddly. I am still playing catch up. It’s fair to say I didn’t get a whole lot of work done this weekend.
