Turbo’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad (few) Days!
Some time during the morning on Monday as I cleaned up from our Super Bowl party, I noticed that Turbo wasn’t fully utilizing the feet God gave him. In fact, Turbo was making a concerted effort to avoid walking on his front, left paw. I scooped him up and set him in my lap, figuring he probably had a sticker in his paw since he’d been out playing in the yard and surveying his kingdom from his favorite chair for the prior few hours. While he clearly didn’t appreciate my efforts to relieve him of his pain, Turbo sat patiently while I dug around hunting for the intruder. Unfortunately, I found nothing. Assuming he’d landed on his foot “funny” or just managed to hurt it a bit somehow, I set him back down and let him be. Both he and Roger will scrape a paw or land funny and favor a leg for a day or two then be just fine, so I didn’t see a reason to rush him to the vet at that time.
For the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday, Turbo continued to favor his front leg, refusing to put any weight on it unless absolutely necessary. (Absolutely necessary as defined by Turbo included things like jumping up on the couch or bed, pawing at me to get under a blanket, and spinning in gleeful circles when Scott got home from work.) Both Scott and I tried to look at his paw several times, and each time we noticed he was less and less thrilled with us messing with it. On Wednesday late afternoon, I noticed that his paw was swollen. As it hadn’t been swollen previously, I grew increasingly concerned that perhaps he’d fractured a bone in his paw. He was still favoring it, and he was starting to cry out when we touched it. As it was too late to make it to our vet before closing, I decided to take him in bright and early Thursday morning.
Thursday started off with a bang for both of us. Turbo’s paw still hurt, and I accidentally sprayed my hair down with a 2:5 Clorox to water mix I had in a bottle identical to my hair water. I’m thinking I’ll be changing bottles for one of the two very, very soon as that was unpleasant, but I digress… After fruitlessly trying to convince a panic-stricken Roger that it was okay, that Turbo wasn’t getting to go for a fun car ride without him, Turbo and I shared a relatively pleasant rush-hour drive to the vet. As soon as Turbo realized where we were, the shaking began. He shivered for pretty much the whole time we were there and clung to me as though his life would end the moment he let go of me. (This, too, qualified as an absolutely necessary use of his paw.)
We made it back to the exam room, and Turbo’s personal hell really began. We were separated for all of about two minutes while the tech took him back for a weight check and to take his temperature. By the look on Turbo’s face when they left, I’m pretty sure he thought he’d never see me again. When they returned, the relief I saw in Turbo’s eyes would have been comical had I not felt so badly for the little guy. I snuggled him in my arms until the vet came into the room for the examination. Knowing how Turbo felt about ME touching his foot, we decided that a “party hat” (read: muzzle) was going to be necessary for the doctor to get a good look at Turbo’s foot. They made friends for a bit while the doctor and I visited and he did a routine exam on Turbo, then it took two of us to hold my less-than-ten-pound dog so that the doctor could check out his foot. Upon closer inspection, it was determined that the swelling wasn’t the kind to be indicative of a fracture (good news); however, the doctor squeezed a bit on the really swollen part of Turbo’s foot, and it popped. I’ll spare you the details, though suffice it to say I’m glad I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. The doctor said that Turbo had an abscess on his foot, probably as a result of a thorn or something like that that had gotten lodged in his paw. He said that the skin on dogs’ feet heals so quickly that by the time I looked at Turbo’s foot, there was probably very little if any indication of something sticking him. I felt horrible, knowing I’d let Turbo suffer for three whole days before taking him in to see the vet. Thankfully, the vet said he would have done exactly as I did, especially since Turbo was only favoring the foot; he wasn’t licking at it, chewing on it, or anything else that would suggest there was an irritant still there. The bad news was that Turbo was going to have to have surgery. The doctor had to put him under, cut open his foot, and clean out the abscess. In the process, he located the foreign object that had caused my little guy so much pain: a teeny, tiny little thorn. Go figure. This whole process took about two hours, but to Turbo, I’m sure it felt like years.
Once I got Turbo home, I had to put him in the cone of shame. He hates me for it. I can see it in his eyes. He spent the first few hours at home in his crate, staring daggers at me every time I walked in front of him. I finally took pity on him and let him out of both his crate and collar for a bit. I’ve had to keep him in my lap to make sure he doesn’t lick his paw, but he’s so grateful to be out of doggy prison he’ll do just about anything for me right now. I also gave him a slice of turkey since he hasn’t eaten anything all day. Turbo likes turkey. We might be able to be friends again one of these days if I keep up the turkey bribery. :) I don’t believe he’s going to like the ten days of medication in his immediate future, though.