Libby

So I guess Libby was not not going to be out done by her daddy, so she had to have a near death experience as well...

Chase and Libby went for a run last weekend, like they do most weekends, but this time he decided to run a mountain bike trail through the woods instead of through our neighborhood. They had been running about 20 minutes when Libby's started getting really hot and tired, so he would stop with her for a minute or two and let her lay down and rest, but then they would head off down the trails again. They had only been running about 30 minutes when Libby took a break and would not get back up. Chase could not get her to move an inch, not even to walk out of the woods. So, being the AMAZING daddy that he is, he picked all 84lbs of her up and put her across his shoulders and proceeded to carry her out of the woods. As he was carrying her out she kept getting progressively worse to the point she could no longer control her bowls, but again being the AMAZING daddy that Chase is, he continued to carry her the 2 miles out of the woods. When he just couldn't carry her any farther, he laid her down and ran to a nearby house, where he borrowed a 5 gal. bucket, filled it up with cold water, and carried it back to Libby in the woods. The guys who lived in that house followed Chase to where Libby was with a wagon, and they loaded her in the wagon and wheeled her the rest of the way out of the woods to the pond. They laid her in the pond to let her try to cool off.  This is when I got a phone call...

Chase: I think Libby got dehydrated.
Me: Oh, Is she ok?
Chase: I think so, I had to carry her out of the woods, but she is cooling off in the lake right now. She is not able to control her bowls and she is throwing up. Will you call the vet to see what we need to do.
Me- ok, and I'll google it.

NEXT CALL

Me: Vet and the internet both said you can give her clear pedialyte, and it should resolve itself in a few hours.
Chase: Ok, well we are going to hang out here until she feels a little better. Will you bring me some pedialyte?

So, off I went to Publix, but by the time I got the pedialyte and got to the trail they were ready to head home. So, we all headed back to the house.

When we got home we had to help Libby get out of the truck because she would NOT get up. After a lot of coaxing, we got her to walk through the gate into the back yard, but she immediately laid back down. Thinking she was still hot we carried her over to the kiddie pool and laid her in it. I stayed out there with her trying to wash the "doggie fluids" off of her and make her drink the pedialyte. Chase went in and showered. When he came back out we thought it would be a good idea to get her inside on the tile floor where it was cool, but again she would not get up. So we carried her inside and laid her on the cold tile, thinking maybe she has heat exhaustion, or something, since she was "so tired she didn't want move." Looking back this should have been our cue to take her to the vet, but we had no idea how bad she was.

We let her lay in the floor of the laundry room to rest and cool off, checking on her periodically. After about an hour, I noticed she would no longer pick up her head, and wouldn't really even follow you with her eyes any more. We decided it had to be something more serious then dehydration and heat exhaustion, so we headed to the 24hr pet hospital.

On the ride there, Chase prepared me that we may have to make some tough decisions tonight, and we needed to keep Libby's best interest in mind..... Really Chase, she is ok... I just kept saying "This is absolutely obsured! Ya'll run all the time!" I just thought she was being a drama queen.

When we got there they took one look at her and IMMEDIATELY took her back. The vet called us back and said she had a heat stroke and her body was shutting down. Her temperature was about 6 degrees below normal now, and if they could not get it back up very soon there would be irreversible organ damage... At that point tears started pouring out of my eyes, and Chase sat down with his head in his hands. Then the vet said some other things that I couldn't understand about blood coagulation and the lining of her intestines, and petechia. They were going to run blood work to see how serious it is.

When the blood work came back the vet said, "Guy's she is not good". Then she went on to say some technical things about what her body was doing, then explained what they could do to help her, along with the prices. I was kind of irritated that they were even showing me a price list.... This is our baby, We don't care how much it cost! HELP HER! Then she said something that took my breath away. "She has a 50/50 shot of making it through the night" WHAT?!?!?!?! We had no idea she was that serious! Then I started drilling the vet- They do this all the time...She is only 3 yrs old...How could this happen...

They said we could call and check on her when ever we wanted, but they would call us if she got better or worse. I was a hysterical... and Chase was being strangely quiet, and this really bothered me because I just knew he was blaming himself.

That was the longest night, especially Chase. I could only make it to about midnight, but Chase stayed up until 4am. About 2am they said she was in a downward spiral and they couldn't get her stabilized. They said they didn't think she was going to pull through. Thank goodness I had already passed out, because by the time I woke up at 4:30 she was beginning to show progress. She had gone from "unresponsive" to "alert". About 10am they said she was looking much better, so we got ready and headed up to see her.

When they called us back to the room we could see her trying to nudge her way out to us! She was not only alert, SHE WAS STANDING! We were so excited to see her and she was so excited to see us too! Look at Chase just beaming!!!

The vet said she was doing surprisingly well considering she "didn't think she would be alive when she came back to work this the morning" but she also said she was not out of the woods yet. Libby still had "explosive diarrhea and vomit" and there could be organ damage from her body temperature being so high then so low. So they wanted to keep her another night for observation.

We visited a little bit then headed back home, then went back later that evening to see her again. This time she didn't look as good. She seemed very weak, but the vet said she thinks she will make a full recovery. A full recovery from a 50/50 shot at survival... this girl is a fighter!

We went in to pick her up after work on Tuesday and she was so happy to see us, but was still very weak, and still leaking out her back end. We got 4 different medicines to give her, and we have to come back in 10 days for another round of blood work, but she should be fine. The only residual side effect is she will never be able to tolerate the heat like a normal dog again, but that is a small price to pay considering we almost lost her. GOD IS GOOD!

On the way home... Please note the skid marks down the back seat from her leaky back end! ha!