How did this happen? It all started with a brilliant plan to load up and visit a beach that was fairly dog friendly that neither I, nor Zeke's dad (Thumper) had ever visited. Thus began the Memorial Day 2008 nightmare. We loaded up the kids and all the beach peripherals and headed about an hour from home. We arrive at the state park and are sitting two back in line to pay the gate and Zeke's dad rolls down one of the back windows in our 4Runner so the kids can smell the salt air, I turned around and saw both Zeke and Sadie poking their noses out just like they would do on any other day. Thumper dropped me off at the bathroom and then parked the truck, when I got back, he asks 'where is Zeke?' and 'did you leave him at home?'
Apparently Zeke jumped or fell out of the window, there are scratch marks on my door, but neither of us heard any thing at all.
The search begins, I start running back to the gate asking people if they have seen him; halfway there I see two park rangers and was going to ask them about locating him and there Zeke sits with them as they are getting ready to call our # on his collar. They tell me that some kids saw him and gave Zeke to the rangers. He is not putting any weight on his rear left leg but is not complaining at all when you touch anywhere on his body. Thumper comes over and picks him up the rangers are thinking a sprain maybe, but when we get him back to the truck something is definitely not right with the leg. I thought it was dislocated because we could just pick up the leg and lift away from his body.
We call our vet to get the # for the after hours emergency place (which happens to be right down the street from my office) and they tell me they are slammed and its like a 3 hour wait, but what other option do we have. Load back up and drive the hour back into town, Zeke wanted to lay in the floorboard but we all soon realize that is a bad idea, he starts yelping so we pull over and get him situated on the seat again. He is shaking most of the way but no whining.
Thankfully when we get to the vet the wait has been reduced, we sat there for about an hour before the tech took us back. She took a few vitals and then carried Zeke to the back so the Dr could examine him back there. It was so sad, when she asked Zeke if wanted to go back with her he started to give a cheerful little tail wag but he didn't even get a half wag out. That seemed like it took FOREVER. The Dr says she thinks its a broken bone and wants to do x-rays, but that could take a while longer and so suggests we leave and they'll call us. We got to see Zeke before we left, they had given him some pain medicine and he was acting much more like himself and I petted him through the cage. I cried, but we left him, so he could be monitored by people who know what the heck they are doing.
We got a call back an hour later, telling us the results of the X-Ray mentioned at the first of this post. One frustration is that I would like our vet's opinion, but the office doesn't open till 8am and he gets in at 9am, and if we are taking Zeke from the emergency place they want him checked out by 8am. The end result being we have decided to leave him there and let the specialist carry on when he gets rolling at 9am tomorrow, but supposedly doesn't do surgeries till the afternoon, so there would still be time for the ortho guy and my vet to talk.
I feel guilty for leaving him there. Sure there are trained staff at the clinic all night but wouldn't he be happier laying on a soft cushion here in his own home, couldn't they send him home with some pain meds and let me pet on him. And the vet gave us the option to take him home tonight... that makes the decision even harder. I cannot even begin to describe how stressed I feel right now and I can't stop thinking of how lonely Zeke must feel in that metal cage with all of those sick animals around him. It's probably going to be a long night for all of us.
Till tomorrow then.
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