Note: Third (and last!) post on the turkey bone mystery. See this and this.

Yesterday, very pleased that the turkey-bone-drama with dogs was over, I got a call from Marita, next door. Colin’s dog Kona, who Marita is taking care of, had had diarrhea, all over the floor of the room he uses to go outside, but the doggie door had been closed. “And thank goodness,” she said, on our way up to a 24 hour day/night Emergency Vet Care Center in Indianapolis (one hour 20 minutes away), that he didn’t go outside, because I wouldn’t have known about it.”

Not sure whether she checked the internet first, or whether she cleaned up the mess first, but in any case, she found out that yes, diarrhea can be a symptom of blocked intestines. Especially when he had earlier tried, and failed, to poop.

Of course we were both freaked. Especially me. Almost immediately, we hopped in the car, with Kona acting perfectly fine, no other symptoms, without anything but our purses with phones, and drove immediately up there, after first trying the newly established Urgent Vet Care Center here — CLOSED. We had been told that the wait list at the Emergency Vet Care was five hours, but needed to sign him in ASAP or it might be more.

Before driving out of the parking lot of the Urgent Care Center here, we wondered whether and if we should tell Colin, who, if you recall, is in a long-term recovery process from a doubly dissected aorta and is presently in a local care center, paralyzed, with extreme nerve pain. “That’s all he needs,” we told each other, “to worry about Kona!” But we decided we had to tell him, and did, first calling brother Sean, to tell him and warn him of the possible economic consequences, which he is in charge of during Colin’s convalescence. Of course worst case scenarios were on our minds: what if they have to operate? What if he’s got bones in so many places that they can’t even operate? Will we have to put him down? We hoped for the best case scenario, that with an abdominal X-ray  and a radiological interpretation, there will be no bones. But we sure didn’t expect it, especially after seeing the roaster emptied of the entire carcass, and knowing Kona is big enough to get the cover off.

By the time we arrived, the wait had increased to eight hours . . . We decided to get a motel room and simply stay until morning. It took awhile for them to check Kona in, and after they did we left, expecting them to call about 4 AM.

In the motel room, two hours later, beginning to relax in bed, a phone call: they had already examined him, X-rayed him and interpreted the X-ray! And he’s fine, the vet said. He has some tiny bone fragments at the bottom of his stomach, but they should pass through very well. The diarrhea? Well, that’s likely from the turkey leavings we had fed both dogs the day before. Colin had never fed his dog anything but dog food, so Kona was having trouble digesting it.

We decided to stay the night and pick him up at 6 AM. I got 4 hours sleep. Marita got a bit more. Home around 7:30. Utterly exhausted.

So both dogs DID get into the roaster, but neither one was harmed by whatever they took out of it. Is the carcass still floating around outdoors? Or did a raccoon finally get to it. In any case, Kona is no longer allowed out of the house alone, since if he left the carcass somewhere, he could still go back to it. Likewise Shadow. At least until we can surmise that wild animals have very likely taken care of it.

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I tell the story of this tiny hyperlocal drama here, ploughing through the whole thing as an example of what I, one person on this massively troubled planet, have been going through — physically, mentally, emotionally. I imagine just about everyone could tell a similar story — of actual danger, possible danger? danger averted? — plus large and unexpected monetary costs . . .

Time to sleep.