Lauren1027
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2013
Quick Update: 12/29/2015
Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas, or whatever holiday it is that you celebrate. George and I had a nice, relaxing Christmas with our families, but had a huge scare this weekend so I've been a little absent from the boards. To give you the short story, we woke up on Sunday morning to my dog throwing up. I rushed her outside to avoid getting puke all over the house and she collapsed and her legs started shaking. I thought she was having a seizure, freaked out, and rushed straight to the vet. I thought something was wrong with her stomach because she didn't want to eat her food the night before, but as soon as our vet was checking her pulse, she noticed that her heartbeat was extremely low and that I should take her to the nearest vet ER. I did so immediately, and when the vet there was checking her out, she had another collapsing episode. The vet hooked her up to an EKG and sent the results to a cardiologist, where they determined that she had a complete heart block and would need a pacemaker. My heart completely stopped at that time and I almost passed out at the news. My dog is almost 10, which I know is older, but she's a beagle and beagles tend to live 12-15 years. I decided that I'd do whatever it took to save my baby girl, especially since she's never had any health issues prior to this.
Unfortunately, the closest place that does the pacemaker surgery is at UF in Gainesville, which is a 2-hour drive from Orlando. Thankfully I'm off from work all week and was able to pack up the car and take her straight there. It was a long, stressful drive and an even more stressful few hours at the UF Animal Hospital. When I met with he cardiologists and surgeon there, they told me that she would be an excellent candidate for the surgery and should make a full recovery. We were on board and she went went down for surgery that same night. There were a few scares during the operation with her heart stopping, but once they got the pacemaker in, she was good.
She stayed at UF all day yesterday and overnight to recover, and today we drove back to pick her up. We're all home now and we have to keep her very calm for the next 6-8 weeks, but she is expected to make a full recovery. Even picking her up from the hospital today, she seemed just like my old girl that I've known for the past 9 years. I'm SO relieved.
That's my baby girl, Jozee. She will be 10 at the end of January and I've had her her whole life. This photo was taken on my birthday last year. She was dying to try on Duffy's raincoat. Lol.
Of course the surgery was very expensive, but it was all worth it to me. It will undoubtedly eat into our wedding budget a bit (and definitely our house funds), but I'm just happy she's alive and should have a normal life once she is fully recovered. We were also very lucky that the vet bill was much lower than they had initially quoted us, which gave me a mini heart attack.
And in happier news, we got an email from our wedding consultant today with our annual passes attached to them! I'm so happy that we didn't miss the boat on the free APs, since there are rumors that they're going away. This was a huge plus for us in deciding to book a wedding with DFTW because we basically see it as taking about $1,200 off the price of our wedding since we would have purchased APs anyways. We just renewed ours in October, so having these AP vouchers will be a huge relief come next October, when we basically have the pay off our entire wedding.
That's all I've got for now! Since i'm off all week and will just be sticking around the house with Jozee, I should have time to discuss more wedding plans and maybe post our engagement photos.
Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas, or whatever holiday it is that you celebrate. George and I had a nice, relaxing Christmas with our families, but had a huge scare this weekend so I've been a little absent from the boards. To give you the short story, we woke up on Sunday morning to my dog throwing up. I rushed her outside to avoid getting puke all over the house and she collapsed and her legs started shaking. I thought she was having a seizure, freaked out, and rushed straight to the vet. I thought something was wrong with her stomach because she didn't want to eat her food the night before, but as soon as our vet was checking her pulse, she noticed that her heartbeat was extremely low and that I should take her to the nearest vet ER. I did so immediately, and when the vet there was checking her out, she had another collapsing episode. The vet hooked her up to an EKG and sent the results to a cardiologist, where they determined that she had a complete heart block and would need a pacemaker. My heart completely stopped at that time and I almost passed out at the news. My dog is almost 10, which I know is older, but she's a beagle and beagles tend to live 12-15 years. I decided that I'd do whatever it took to save my baby girl, especially since she's never had any health issues prior to this.
Unfortunately, the closest place that does the pacemaker surgery is at UF in Gainesville, which is a 2-hour drive from Orlando. Thankfully I'm off from work all week and was able to pack up the car and take her straight there. It was a long, stressful drive and an even more stressful few hours at the UF Animal Hospital. When I met with he cardiologists and surgeon there, they told me that she would be an excellent candidate for the surgery and should make a full recovery. We were on board and she went went down for surgery that same night. There were a few scares during the operation with her heart stopping, but once they got the pacemaker in, she was good.
She stayed at UF all day yesterday and overnight to recover, and today we drove back to pick her up. We're all home now and we have to keep her very calm for the next 6-8 weeks, but she is expected to make a full recovery. Even picking her up from the hospital today, she seemed just like my old girl that I've known for the past 9 years. I'm SO relieved.
That's my baby girl, Jozee. She will be 10 at the end of January and I've had her her whole life. This photo was taken on my birthday last year. She was dying to try on Duffy's raincoat. Lol.
Of course the surgery was very expensive, but it was all worth it to me. It will undoubtedly eat into our wedding budget a bit (and definitely our house funds), but I'm just happy she's alive and should have a normal life once she is fully recovered. We were also very lucky that the vet bill was much lower than they had initially quoted us, which gave me a mini heart attack.
And in happier news, we got an email from our wedding consultant today with our annual passes attached to them! I'm so happy that we didn't miss the boat on the free APs, since there are rumors that they're going away. This was a huge plus for us in deciding to book a wedding with DFTW because we basically see it as taking about $1,200 off the price of our wedding since we would have purchased APs anyways. We just renewed ours in October, so having these AP vouchers will be a huge relief come next October, when we basically have the pay off our entire wedding.
That's all I've got for now! Since i'm off all week and will just be sticking around the house with Jozee, I should have time to discuss more wedding plans and maybe post our engagement photos.