Welcome back, little buddy.
Chulo has been a total freak show lately and we’re so excited. He’s pacing like an idiot in the middle of the night, he’s whining over his formerly-stuffed fuzzy duck carcass or “digging to China” next to our heads. During the day, he’s cranky, he growls at us whenever we get too close to his still-stuffed sheep, and when he’s not barking at absolutely nothing, he’s begging for food.
What I’m saying is that things are back to normal and it’s about time.
We first noticed Chulo had an issue when he started kinda falling all over the place. Now, he’s always been a klutz and pretty prone to tripping over nothing but this was more than that. My beloved bichon would try to get up and walk somewhere, but his little back legs would hesitate to cooperate. After a minute or two he could kind of work it out going in a straight line, but forget trying to turn. Plus he was sleeping like crazy and had a generally pleasant demeanor, so we knew something was up.
Being a klutz, Chulo tends to beat himself quite up a bit. We’ve got this coffee table and he is forever banging his head into it because he “shakes it out” too close to it or slamming his back into it when he tries to jump on the couch from underneath it. Most recently, he whacked his right side when he misjudged a jump, fell short of the couch and bounced off into the top of the coffee table (and subsequently onto the floor). So, when he developed this weird leg issue, we weren’t super concerned, guessing that it was the aftermath of what was a pretty hard fall for his little Bichon body.
However, once he became lethargic and refused to eat his favorite bunny breakfast, we knew something was really wrong. I took him into the vet and reported his symptoms. Dr. B started her examination and gave me the rundown.
Well, he’s lost a pound since he was here last, he’s got some tooth disease, I can see that there is a bit of wax backed up in his ears and [pause to listen to his heart] did you know he has a heart murmur? That could indicate the potential for congestive heart failure.
Of course, this is where I fell apart. Congestive heart failure is what killed my mom less than 6 months ago, which is what I finally was able to get out to the vet, once I got the sobbing under control.
She assured me, “Well, I’m not sure what’s going on with Chulo, but he’s going to have to be okay.” Which sounded really good to me. The doctor put him on a series of antibiotics because of the sensitivity in his clogged ear and gave him pain meds for his back. She told me to keep an eye on him and let her know the progress.
It took several weeks and for a lot of that time I kept seeing mental images of Speedy, the Golden Retriever from the Drew Carey show. I also expended a lot of energy trying to keep thoughts of “congestive heart failure” out of my head. I decided years ago that Chulo is eternal and heart disease just doesn’t fit into the plan.
The good news, however, is that it all worked itself out. And by worked itself out, I mean it worked out after we spent hundreds of dollars and lost years of our own lives from worrying obsessively. We’re still not sure what happened, but the man is back and in full effect, and that’s all that counts.
June 21st, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Yeah! Chulo;)
July 5th, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Praise Smoking Baby!