A scary night
My dog has been having more and more trouble breathing. Well, not breathing, really, but the congestion rumbling in his chest and his cough have been getting gradually worse. Last night, I though I was going to have to make an emergency trip to the vet.
He woke me up at 2:30 and again at 3:30 nearly unable to breathe at all. It’s like when you’ve got a terribly head or sinus cold and your nose is all plugged up. Try to breathe through your nose and your chest ends up heaving until you give up and breathe through your mouth. Except it’s the same for his mouth.
His diaphragm is pumping madly but little air is getting in or out. He got it sorted out after about 30 (very long) seconds, but afterwards he was shaking in that way he does when you take him to the vet. Clearly, he was scared or upset. He’s fine this morning and after our walk, he was running up and down the apartment with his rope toy. But trying to tug-of-war with the rope brought on another coughing fit. But after breakfast, he settled down without much more trouble.
Then shortly after lunch, another breathing attack came on, and left him shaking again. I called the vet around noon and she called back an our later and said she’d phone in a prescription for prednisone to CVS, but she said it would be unlikely to have any affect in the very short term (steroids have to build up in the body before they’re effective). The prescription won’t be ready until this evening. It’s Sunday and I don’t know how late the pharmacy is open. Tomorrow is New Years Eve, but the vet is open, so I’m going to try to get in there first thing.
But I think it’s going to be a rough night. This afternoon, I’m going to see if going for a walk makes things better or worse. We could go for a walk in the middle of the night if that will settle things down a bit. I’m leaving my desktop machine on and open to the zipcar reservation page so I can get a car without waiting for the thing to boot, just in case I need to get to Angell in a hurry. I wonder if a warm bath might help things, even though he hates baths.
This is all quite distressing, and things like this always seem to happen in the dead of night, don’t they?
