We took Perrin home Monday evening from the emergency vet with instructions to watch him for signs of abdominal pain or vomiting over night and then possibly follow up with our normal vet in the morning. He was sluggish and snoozy on the ride back home as the drug that they injected him with to induce vomiting apparently packs quite a wallop.

Our plan was for me to get up with Perrin at 7am and keep an eye on him for any signs of trouble while working from home until a disturbance or until I needed to go into the office for an 11am meeting. Melinda had to our for an errand that morning, so it was up to me to make sure Perrin was fine.

Things didn’t go as planned.

I woke up around 6am in absolutely darkness to the sound of Perrin gagging and the sinking feeling that I was about to have to clean up dog vomit. Before I could position him to anywhere more strategic (such a wooden portion of the floor), Perrin proceeded to vomit up more purple Kong toy pieces. Not pausing to access the damage, I tried to escort him downstairs quickly only to have him vomit again at the foot of the stairs. This time it was only a small bit, but I noticed in the light of the hall way that there was a little bit of bloody phlegm in the mess. I took concerned note of this and then shuffled him quickly downstairs where he once again threw up even more pieces of purple Kong toy. Every time, I kept thing how this surely had to be everything.

But no… the Kong toy was the gift that kept on giving.

After the third time, Perrin’s stomach seemed to settle. After cleaning up the mess, I cracked open my laptop, made myself breakfast and coffee and settled in for what was to be a long and tiring morning. I contacted the emergency vet by phone to make sure that the trace amounts of blood were nothing to be concerned over. She felt that it wasn’t serious in the amounts that I described. I decided I would continue to monitor the situation and call my vet when they opened to see if she felt that Perrin needed to be examined further.

Over the course of waiting for the vet to open, he vomited five more times each time bringing up yet more rubber pieces and the last time was somewhat unnerving as it was mostly bloody phlegm. With this turn of events, I called my vet and as I expected, she wanted us to bring Perrin in for X-rays.

With barely time for a quick shower and change of clothes, I rushed off to take Perrin to the vet where they proceeded to take X-rays. While I was worried about him, I thought at this point that he was probably over the worst of it and that I would soon be headed back home with maybe some medicine to settle his gi tract. While Perrin was being X-rayed, I was using my cell phone as a hotspot so that I could check my work email on my laptop and make sure that my meeting got delayed so that I didn’t have to worry about missing it while at the vet’s office.

I was absentmindedly typing away when the vet returned and her demeanor caught me off guard. It seemed that things weren’t going to be so simple after all. The X-rays showed some troubling things, and I would need to make a decision.

To be continued…