What a night last night!
We drove to the very small town of Ehrenberg, AZ and stopped in a Western Horizon Resort for the night. We are members so we can stay for $3 a night (don’t ask how much the membership cost! Passport America is a much better deal).
Isabella usually sleeps on a special bed we make for her on the couch. Whenever she is cold or doesn’t feel well, she comes into the bedroom and snuggles up next to me. I put her to bed and kissed her goodnight about 9 last night. About 1:30 in the morning, I was awakened by her coughing and moaning. I got up and found her on the bedroom floor, unwilling to move. I tried to give her Bloat Buster but she threw it up along with a bunch of foam. BLOAT again for the 3rd time!
I had just washed all the bedding and the dog beds that day and now they were all covered with slimy foam barf!
Our internet connection was not good but I managed to find a vet a few miles down the road in Blythe. I called and got the answering service. The vet called back and we drove in to meet him about 2 AM. Isabella never looks like she is bloating from the outside. I just know! He was a horse vet but assured me he had experience with bloat (successful experience I hoped!). He palpated her and said he didn’t think she was bloated but I urged him to x-ray. He did – she was. Luckily, it was in the very early stages.
So, being the good horse vet he was, he passed a tube down her nose (he sprayed her with something to numb her nasal passage first) just as you would to tube a horse for colic. Then he used a syringe to suck out the air. He smelled what came out to make sure it came form her tummy. GROSS! He was not satisfied with the results so he passed a tube down her throat. He used a roll of surgical tape to keep her mouth open while he passed the tube. More air and a burp were expelled from that tubing. He suggested we take her home and give her more Bloat Buster. The entire cost for 2 hours at the vet’s in the middle of the night, x-rays, tubing and smelling her bad breath? A mere $164!!!! HOLY CRAP! Had we been in a big city, it would have been in the thousands!
We continued to give her Gas-x and Bloat Buster and she improved. Tonight she is resting well and seems back to her self other than some intermittent drooling. Poor Isabella, life sure sucks for her sometimes.
We arrived in Indio about 9:30 this morning and settled into our spot. We will be here only 2 days so they didn’t give us sewer or 50 AMP. I HATE THAT! The manager said they only give full hook ups to stays of 3 days or more. I told her we paid a fortune to buy into this park and we have never had a full hook up. I told her next time I would make the reservation for three days and only stay 2 so we got a sewer! We had all the bedding to wash from Isabella and no sewer to drain so it was Laundromat time for us. The mobile washer guys came around and we had them wash and wax the Global Warmer and the Extortion. We had accumulated a lot of grime on our 2,500 mile trip from Florida. (see photo above).
After the Global Warmer beautification, we loaded all the girlz into the Extortion and drove to the dog park. They were sure happy to run run run! After the park we went to our favorite restaurant in the desert, NATIVE FOODS!!! www.nativefoods.com It is Mel’s birthday today, 70 years young! We celebrated with a vegan feast! Native Foods is the reason we bought a home here in 2001 and biggest reason we didn’t want to sell that home last year.
Tomorrow 2 girlz get groomed and the other 2 the next day. I am also getting groomed! I am shaggy and unkempt after nearly 2 months with no hair cut. Mel his hair buzzed today (all 1 of them).
God how I love the desert!
Helen & The Girlz And The Grumpy Even Older Bald Guy Who Drives The Global Warmer
www.jility.com
