I start to cry because I feel so helpless.
“I’ll run and grab the truck; you stay here.” Sam sprints down the block toward his house.
A couple minutes later, Sam rolls up to the curb and jumps out. The coughing hasn’t stopped, and he’s starting tolook like he’s in pain. My face is soaked with tears, and my vision is blurry.
Sam lifts Pepin into the back seat, and I climb back there with him. He places his head on my lap, and Sam peels out, taking off down the road. I don’t even know where we’re going because Pepin’s vet is closed on weekends, but Sam has GPS navigating somewhere, and I trust him.
“It’s okay, Pep.” I continue petting him and trying to make him comfortable. I keep hoping that it’ll stop, but it never does.
“Hey Lou,” he gets my attention, “would you be able to call them ahead of time to start the check-in process.”
I nod and take out my phone. He gives me the name of the place we’re going, and I call them. The lady on the phone is extremely calm, and I feel like she’s not understanding the urgency of this. I’m sure she deals with crazy people who over exaggerate all the time, but Pepin isnotokay.
She makes me give an email, make a deposit, and go through the financial responsibility of these visits. I tell her I don’t care how much it costs, I’ll pay it. She then tells me that the estimated wait time right now is three to four hours. I tell her he can’t wait that long, and she attempts to reassure me that the triage team will assess him when we get there and make that call.
It takes us 15 minutes to get to the emergency vet, and I’m still on the phone with someone when we pull up. Sam grabs Pepin out of the back and carries all 65 pounds of him like he’s a newborn baby.
When we walk in, the front desk staff can clearly see that Pepin is in distress, and they rush around the counter and help Sam get him onto a padded cart.
Finally, someone understands the urgency!
I hear people running down the hall calling for an open room, but it’s muffled. My ears are ringing, and I can feel my heartbeat in my toes. I see Sam talking to the vet tech and signing papers. I’m still right by Pep’s side, petting him and kissing the top of his head as he lays on his side, still wheezing.
Someone in scrubs comes over and says something to me. The ringing continues, and I don't hear her.
“What?”
I feel Sam grab my arm. “Lou, they're going to take him back now.”
They start to wheel him away, and he tries to sit up to look back at me. I give him one last kiss on the head and gently lay him back down on the cart. “I’ll see you soon, Pep. I love you.”
They take him to the back, then Sam and I are instructed to wait in the lobby. We sit down on two chairs next to each other, and I lean into Sam. He puts his arm around me and rubs my head with the other.
I’m feeling a little better now that we’re here, but I’m still so worried about him.
After sitting in silence for a while, a woman in scrubs comes out and calls our name. I shoot up and walk over to her as quickly as I can without running, and Sam follows behind me.
“How is he?”
“I’ll walk you back to one of our consult rooms, and the doctor will be in shortly to discuss Pepin’s condition with you.”
Why couldn’t she just say he’s fine? Is he not fine? I look back at Sam, worried, and I can tell he’s trying hard to be calm for me. We sit down in the room and wait.
A woman walks in and introduces herself as the vet. This time, I don’t bother asking how he is because now that she’s here, I’m not sure I want to know.
“Pepin is sedated right now and stable. We were able to get some scans done and determined that he has gastric bloat. His breed, his gender, and his age put him at high risk for it. Essentially, what happened is that Pepin’s stomach flipped. When the intestines get cut off like that, it causes gas to build up in their abdomen.”
"How did that happen?"
"It's usually a freak accident; it likely wasn't anything you did."
I nod, even though I will continue to run through the entire day in my mind, trying to figure out what could have gone wrong.
“So how do we fix it?”
“He needs surgery immediately. We will need to remove the parts of the intestine that have already died and then put the healthy bits back together.”
“Okay, let’s do it.”
